


flower/ink

by timeforgetsyou



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, I Don't Even Know, Slow Burn, Some angst?, UST, florist/tattoo artist au, i can't believe i wrote it, i did it, i wrote the tattoo artist/florist au, mostly not though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-03-06 19:47:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 47,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3146441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeforgetsyou/pseuds/timeforgetsyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well, I guess I wrote that silly tattoo artist/florist AU that was making its round on tumblr. I don't know, you guys.</p><p>Lavellan is struggling to make it from tattoo apprentice to tattoo artist, and in the meantime she's stuck tattooing flaming skulls and infinity symbols on the inside of eighteen-year-old girls' wrists. Not to mention her favorite Peruvian chicken place just got replaced with a /florist's./ Everything is the worst, everyone is awkward, everyone drinks coffee and adjusts their plastic-rimmed glasses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

As soon as the “FOR LEASE,” sign gets taken down from the Peruvian chicken place across the street, I know we're screwed. They're never coming back.

“Nooooo,” I groan, leaning into the door. “Where will I get my 2 A.M. quarter-chickens now?”

I hit my forehead on the glass with an audible _thud_.

“Ugh, Ellana, please remove your greasy mitts from the window. You’ll leave streaks. Not to mention, you are a fire hazard standing there.”

I utter a knee-jerk “Sorry, Cassandra,” and push myself away from the glass doors of the shop.

Cassandra, tall, built like a brick house, and probably disappointing her family somewhere, leans out from the back office. Eagle eyes.

Varric gets up from his desk and crosses over to me, putting a reassuring hand on my knee. “Come on, Beansprout – you knew that this time was coming. They’ve been closed for a month.”

“But that didn’t have to mean that they were gone. They could have come back. This means they’re gone _forever_. I feel abandoned by Consuela, to be honest.”

“She always gave you extra sides.”

“She was kind that way.”

“Ellana,” Cassandra calls.

“My hands are off the glass, Cass!”

Cassandra leans back out from the back office. “I know. That isn’t what I wanted to – I just want to know how your portfolio is coming along.”

“Ah,” I cast a sidelong glance to the sketchbook poking out of my backpack in the corner of the room.

“Great. Just great.” I say. Lie. I totally definitely lie.

“You know I’d love to sponsor your license, but until you have some more varied work to show me--”

“I’ll be an apprentice forever. Got it. Thanks.”

“You can’t do dots and lines forever, Ellana.”

I blink at her, and she ducks back into her office.

“Do you think she ever tries to be even remotely supportive?”

“Beansprout, I think her robot parts would malfunction.”

-

I like Leliana. She runs the coffee shop next door, and she always has extra coffee grounds to spare, or passes me the espresso she’s says she messed up for the paying customers. She’s French, she can play the guitar, and when she sweeps the floor with you at poker, she’s really nice about it.

I don’t know much else about her, except that her girlfriend served overseas a few years ago. I hear she isn’t doing too well. We don’t talk about it.

 “The used grounds are good for the flower boxes, so it’s not really a waste,” she winks at me as she sets a small mug down at my table before I can protest.

“Thanks, Leliana,” I smile up at her from my sketchbook and pens.

“It’s my treat,” she laughs, “And to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Cassandra told me that moping around the shop was putting off the customers.”

“Another full schedule for Miss Pentaghast?”

“Mmm,” I sip from the cup of coffee, “I heard Cullen say on the phone that we’re booking fewer slots than we did this time last year.”

“Well, a tattoo parlor in a college town normally does better in the late fall. You have to wait for the children to break free from the shackles of parental disapproval. After homecoming, they get a few drinks in them. Maybe then business will pick up a little, no?”

“Oh, I don’t mind about business being slow, that’s more Cassandra’s bag. Not my responsibility. I’m sad about Mama Flan closing down.” I jab my thumb in the general direction of across the street.

“Ah, yes, I will miss Consuela. Although I hear that a florist’s will take her place, and if I am being honest, that I much prefer.”

A bit of coffee goes down wrong, and I cough, “A florist?”

“Why not? It will be good to have some more feminine energy on the street. I can ask her what to plant in my flowerboxes so I don’t have to replace them each season. Perennials.”

I don’t respond. It’s not my forte. I go back to my pens.

“Maybe I could start growing cucumbers, or even zucchini! What do you think, Ellana?”

“Mmm, zucchini, sounds great.”

She tries to peek at what I’m sketching, but I shield the pages with my arms.

“What are you drawing? Can I see?”

“No, Leliana,” I huff, but she pouts, and I sigh, and I turn the book her way. It always seems to work that way with her.

“Lots of shapes.”

“Geometric minimalism,” I correct her.

“Right.”

“It’s a style."

“It’s boring.”

I snatch my sketchbook back, and close it with a fairly satisfying snap.

“Look,” I say, “If you’re going to respond just like Cassandra –“

“Oh, Ellana, I’m sorry, it’s just – couldn’t you try something more fun? Like—“

“Flowers?”

“Yes! How did you know that was what I was going to say?” She smirks at me, as if she already knows.

“Because that’s what Cassandra said,” I frown at the ground, “She said I need to loosen up my style. Try something more feminine to get some variance. I tried to tell her that geometric and tribal could be my thing, but she said that _she_ already had that market, and that Varric already has traditional, Americana, and traditional Japanese covered, so while I could _theoretically_ stick with what I’m doing, Cassandra isn’t going to hire me unless I can show her that I can add something to the shop. So I’ll just sit back and tattoo infinity symbols on the inside of wrists of freshmen girls from now until the end of the world.”

“A fate worse than death,” Leliana says, humoring me.

“ _I know._ ”

-

Leliana, as usual, is right. It’s less than a week before the building is gutted and restuffed, and a hand stenciled sign reading “Florist,” is where a backlit sign glaring “MAMA FLAN” used to be. Sitting in the seat to the bay window of the parlor, I sigh. At least the sign’s type is good. A solid script. Legible, a hint of old-school, but with clean lines. Whoever did it could tattoo me any day.

“Hey Beansprout, could you bring me my toolkit?”

Wordlessly, I head toward the back room to get Varric’s toolkit for him. He’s tinkering with his tattoo machine again, replacing a motor. Or a coil. Maybe a compressor? I was never quite sure with Bianca. Varric’s was unlike any tattoo machine I’d ever come across, and he was sure to remind me of it whenever he got the chance.

Cullen is in the back room with Cassandra, going over ledgers. As far as accountants go, Rutherford is an alright guy. He does our books for cheap, and he doesn’t try and ask for free work. Not that I think he would. He’s the upstanding sort. I think he works for the church, but I’ve never asked. Bit too button down for me.

They were talking pretty quietly, but they stop altogether as soon as I enter the room.

“Can I help you, Ellana?”

I freeze in the doorway about as awkwardly as possible.

“Varric’s… toolkit?”

“Center cabinet, center shelf.”

“Thanks.”

“Mmm.”

I can feel their eyes on me as I make my way to the cabinets on the other side of the office, and rummage around until I find the bag of screwdrivers and tiny machine parts with the name “Bartrand,” embroidered on the side. I lift it from the cabinet, and gingerly carry it out of the room, as if any misstep might set off a landmine.

I set the bag down at Varric’s workstation less than cautiously, and the bag protests by ripping at a seam.

“Jesus, Beansprout, you want to be a bit more careful with that?”

“What’s Cullen doing here?” I whisper.

Varric leans off his chair to pick up a few spare screws that have rolled onto the floor.

“What?”

I crane my neck to try and see if I can’t get a good look at Cullen and Cassandra poring over their paperwork and books. I can’t.

“Why is Cullen here? It’s not tax season. It’s not even close. We never see him except around April, and it’s September.”

Varric comes back up from the floor with a handful of screws and small coils.

“He’s helping Eagle Eyes with the books. Trying to see where we can cut a few corners.”

“Cut a few corners?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly raking in the clients lately.”

“We’re a small studio.”

“We’re two artists and an apprentice.”

I snort.

“Yeah, well, it’s not my fault that Cassandra hasn’t –“

“An apprentice who isn’t even _paying_ for her apprenticeship because _someone_ took them under their wing.”

Well, that shuts me up.

“You owe her. We need another full-time artist in here.”

I don’t look at Varric, because I know that when he gets this tone of voice he’s serious, and when Varric gets serious, it slays me. I’m done for. Instead, I look across the street at the van that’s pulled up outside the florists to unload their opening stock.

“Are you listening to me, Beansprout?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, but I’ve already stuffed my sketchbook into my bag and I’m out the door.

-

Well, it’s definitely not Mama Flan anymore. First of all, there’s a bell over the door. An honest to god, actual, real-life, metal bell attached to the doorframe. It startles me, and I jump.

“Christ,” I hiss.

“I’m afraid not.”

The voice, light and Welsh, comes from the back of the shop, and it takes a second for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. There’s daylight outside, but the shop is dark; dried herbs and flowers hanging upside down from the ceiling mask most of the light coming from there, and I don’t think the windows have been cleaned yet.

They’ve tried to cram too many tables into the front room, and every surface is covered in plants and flowers except for the one toward the back of the shop, near where the florist is standing.

I’m startled again, because the florist is a he-florist. I don’t know why I thought florists had to be women, and I’m a little disappointed in myself for being startled. _Gender-norms, Ellana. You’re better than that._

I’m startled for a third time, because he’s hot.

Not in a normal way – not like I might have told you I’d go for – but there’s something about him. The shock of red hair, or the way he holds himself. The way he confidently runs a flower-shop. Maybe it’s his dark green button-down under a grey sweater combo, or the bow-tie I’m almost 100% sure he’s wearing earnestly.

“Oh,” I stammer, “What?”

“We aren’t open yet.”

“Right,” I say, and I manage to back into a display, and I can feel something wobbling behind me. I turn around to try and catch the something before it falls, but my hands grab only leaves, and before I know it, a very large glass vase has toppled over, and is going to completely shatter on the floor. Then there’s the florist on one knee with the greatest save in the history of great saves, cradling a ficus in one hand and holding my wrist as far away from the ficus as possible with his other hand.

“Wow,” I breathe.

“Do you do nothing but spout monosyllabic exclamations, or is that just for today?”

The florist stands. He’s almost a head taller than I am, and he smells like pipe smoke and sandalwood.

“Sorry?” _Great. Smooth._

“Ah, two syllables. I am mistaken.”

He lets go of my wrist, and I rub the area. He has a tight grip.

“Must be a good shrub.” _Excellent. Superb, Ellana._

“It’s a fig tree. A small one. They’re very fickle.” He rights the ficus, placing it back on its raised pedestal.

“Look, I’m really sorry –“

The florist turns to look me dead in the eye.

_Grey? Who has grey eyes?_

“We open this weekend. Perhaps you can do damage to my shop then.”

He takes a beat to search my face before turning to head back toward, what I assume, is his office.

“Wait, I was just hoping you’d let me draw some of your flowers,” I call after him.

He pauses, but doesn’t turn back around. He does laugh, though, and it’s surprisingly free.

“Is that a serious request?”

He turns, and tilts his head, examining me as if I were in a museum. Or a meal. He’s difficult to read.

I pull my sketch book from my bag and a fistful of markers as evidence.

“I work across the street, and I’m trying to loosen up my style -- do more botanicals -- so I just thought, what with the flowers and all, maybe I could… draw some of yours?”

The corner of his mouth turns upwards, and he pinches the bridge of his nose with one hand.

“Come back on Friday. I’ll make an arrangement for you.”

I smile at him, offer a thumbs up as agreement, and hightail it out of there before he has the time to change his mind.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how tattooists or florists work. I saw an episode of L.A. Ink one time. I have a cactus. I am 110% qualified to write this.


	2. Chapter 2

Today is Tuesday. Friday is two days away. He has two days to change his mind, and I have two days to lay low in the hopes that he doesn’t.

I wish I could say that my interaction with the florist didn’t faze me, that I wasn’t thinking about it, but it did and I was. I really was. I could say that “it was in the name of art,” that I was anxious to expand my repertoire, but that would just be a bold faced lie.

I wanted to see him again.

I didn’t know his name, but I knew that he smelled like an old library and smoke. I knew he had a strong hand.

My wrist still tingled when I thought about it.

“All right, there you go.”

I wipe away the last few bits of blood and black ink from this girl’s shoulder, and survey the finished piece.

“Is that it? Are you done?”

“Yup,” I smile, “all finished.”

I hold up the hand mirror so she can get a good look at it.

She’d wanted three triangles, the center one bigger than the others, with a line intersecting all three. Right up my alley, and I was proud of the little thing.

I look over at Varric and raise my eyebrows. He nods.

_Nailed it._

“Okay, so keep the bandage on for at least the next two to three hours. When you take it off, you’ll have to wash it in warm water with a very mild soap. Nothing with a fragrance. You’ll want to scratch it, _but do not scratch it_. Cover it with lotion, also fragrance-free. For the first two days, rub lotion on it every few hours, or when it feels dry. We have a brand of ointment we recommend at the register. Here’s our card, if you have any questions.”

I finish taping down the gauze, and remove one of my latex gloves with a snap to hand the girl one of the shop’s cards.

“You’re all set,” I say, and with that, my spiel is finished.

“Thank you so much,” the girl smiles. What was her name? Summer? Winter? Fall? “I love it.”

Okay, that warms my heart. I roll my stool over to the garbage can to dispose of my gloves, and try and hide my smile as I busy myself with cleaning up. 

When he’s done at the register, Varric throws me a twenty dollars. A generous tip for apprentice rates.

“I could tell you were zoning out,” he scolds.

 “It’s the buzz of the machine!” I groan, “I can’t help that it’s so soothing. Besides, you saw what she wanted. It wasn’t exactly rocket science.”

I spin around on my chair to look over at him. Sitting down, we’re exactly the same height, and it’s a little unnerving.

“You’ll still sign off on it though, right?”

“Of course I’ll sign off on it. You did everything right. _Except_ for zoning out. Your attention span is fine enough for the smaller pieces, but as soon as someone books you for a back piece, or a sleeve, or anything with actual detail – “

“I’ll take three shots of espresso and a five-hour energy. It’ll be fine!”

Varric sighs as he pulls out the binder with my name written on it, and flips to the worksheet for September. He writes down all the details, signs his name, and then passes it over to me. My fingers feel strange, still covered in powder from the gloves and holding a pen that isn’t buzzing to life in my hands. My signature looks a little wonky. Varric squints.

“You drinking on the job, Beansprout?”

“Something like that,” I laugh.

-

“I’ve decided we’ll have our own Homecoming,” Leliana announces when I walk through the door.

I laugh, and set my backpack down on one of the sofas under the window.

“Leliana, do you know anything about college football?”

“I know about tailgating,” she teases from behind the counter, “and pre-gaming. Why should the students have all the fun? Oh, do you want these macarons by the way? They’ve been sitting here since this morning and –“

“Yes.”

I practically leap to the counter to snatch the tiny confection from her hand. I think a part of her Parisian heart dies when I shove the thing unceremoniously into my mouth.

“You’re supposed to—oh, never mind.”

I grin up at her, leaning my full weight on the counter, picking at the six or seven tiny cookies she’s set there on a plate.

“So,” I breathe, pulling the meringue apart between my fingers, “homecoming.”

Leliana wipes down the espresso machine as she talks.

“Yes, I thought it might be nice to have a little soiree while all the teenagers three streets over get drunk and watch a bunch of other teenagers run into a bunch of different teenagers in the name of a ball.”

“Careful, Leliana, your cynicism is showing.”

She turns around to grin at me.

“It won’t be a big affair. Just a couple of friends here in the shop Saturday night, a little music, and a lot of alcohol. I’ve missed throwing parties. Besides, it would give us a chance to become better acquainted with the block’s new tenant.”

I feel my face get instantly hot and busy myself with pulling apart each macaron.

“He is quite handsome, isn’t he? And with that bow-tie.” She giggles.

 _All right Ellana, don’t blow your cool. You’ve got this_.

“Oh, have you met him?” I venture.

_Nice._

“Mmm, he came in this morning very early to get some tea. Earl Grey. I remember, because when I handed it to him, he told me he hated tea. But he smiled and left with it regardless. Odd duck.”

“So you think he’d enjoy a Homecoming party? A man who hates tea, but drinks it anyway?”

Leliana thinks, and absentmindedly rubs her hands on the tea towel hanging from her apron. It’s light pink, and delicately embroidered around the edges with little white flowers. I think Ana made it for her when she was last in town.

“I think he’s lonely.”

“Huh,” I look back down at the mess I’ve made of Leliana’s macarons. Blueberry, lavender, pistachio.

“I’ll mention it to him if I get the chance.”

-

I wake up on Friday morning with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, my sheets wrapped around my ankles dangerously tightly, and a text message from Cassandra. (As an unrelated side-note, I’ve put a series of little fire icons next to her name, and it makes me laugh whenever I get a text from her. Simple joys.)

\--{ Ella, can you pick up some produce from me at the market this morning

\--{ *for

\--{ Varric’s visiting family today so I have to stay in the shop

\--{ I need tomatoes, leeks, blueberries, and a head of lettuce

                                                                                               you got it boss }—

I disentangle myself from the sheets around my ankles, and roll out of bed. I throw on an old _Virginia is for Lovers_ shirt I got on a road trip a few years back, and pull my hair into a vaguely manageable braid. It feels loose, but I don’t care enough to fix it.

I assess myself in the mirror to make sure it doesn’t look like I’m trying too hard. I’d cut the shirt to expose my collarbones, and you can see the edges of some shoulder work curling out from beneath the jagged collar. I don’t really notice my tattoos anymore unless someone else thinks it’s appropriate to point them out to me – strangers, usually. Or tutting mothers. Especially my own. Although in a way, I guess she falls into both categories.

“Alright, Ellana. Just another regular, no-nonsense, totally normal day.”

I give my reflection some finger guns, grab my backpack and helmet, and I’m out the door.

The bike ride to the farmer’s market is uneventful. The weather is nice, relatively few cars on the road, and I’m paying attention to such a degree that I manage to avoid the three potholes from my apartment to town with little difficulty. So far, it’s a good day.

“Good morning, Vivienne!” I chirp to the woman behind the “Fair-Trade Fruits” sign as I lock my bike to a rack.

“Is it, darling?”

“Mmm, today and every day,” I smile sweetly at her. It bugs her to no end for some reason, and so I do it every time. “A pound of blueberries, please, Madame.”

She silently picks up two cartons of blueberries from her table, weighs, them, and puts them in a paper bag. I pay her, smile again, and put the paper bag in my backpack.

One down, three to go. Harmless. Easy. But as soon as I pick up a bundle of leeks, I see him.

_Of course. Of course he works the farmer’s market._

He’s sitting behind an intricate display of seasonal flowers: hyacinths, daisies, freesia. I know, because there’s a sign for each bouquet, hand stenciled in the same steady script that reads “Florist,” over his shop.

I freeze, clutching the leeks to my chest. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. The florist turns his head, and I shove a fistful of dollars into the hand of the man behind the table a little too quickly and try to force the leeks into my backpack while simultaneously backing away, but now the zipper won’t zip, because the bundle is too tall. I look back up to where the florist’s stand is, and he’s staring right at me with his hand over his mouth.

Because he’s laughing at me.

My face gets warm to the very tip of my ears, and I try to focus on angling the leeks the right way in my backpack so they don’t crush the blueberries, but also so they don’t poke out the top. It’s not working. After a few more seconds of this I feel someone standing next to me, accompanied by the smell of sandalwood.

“Perhaps a larger bag would help.”

I look over to see the florist dangling a canvas bag in his hand that cheerily reads, “I USED TO BE A PAIR OF SHOES.”

He’s wearing another sweater/green button-down/bow-tie combo, and I have to believe that those are the only things he owns.

“Oh, a shoe-bag. Great. Sweet.”

He furrows his brow, and that’s when I notice he has a small acne scar just above his right eyebrow. I’m struck with the urge to run my thumb across it.

I don’t, obviously, because then I would be a crazy person.

Instead I snatch the bag from his hand, and put a strap over my shoulder and begin to transfer produce from my backpack to the bag. When I finish, I zip up my backpack and shrug it onto my shoulders. The weight distribution of two bags feels unwieldy. I shift my weight from one foot to the other, and look up at the florist, who is still standing there, looking amused.

“I don’t even know your name,” I blurt out.

“Nor I yours,” he notes.

“Ellana.”

“Ellana,” he repeats. I try and ignore the way his mouth curls around the word, the way his tongue flicks at the ‘L.’ “Solas.”

A beat.

“Your surname?”

“Lavellan. Yours?”

“Freeman.”

It’s a terse exchange. I suck on my teeth and nod.

“Thanks for the, uh…” I gesture to the bag.

“Think nothing of it,” he responds.

We stand there for a few more moments, and I can feel how close he is to me, but all I can do stare at the ground while my stomach is doing somersaults and I will myself not to vomit all over his loafers. _Loafers_.

“I hope we are still on for today.”

“You do? I mean, yeah. Yes. I’d like to be.” _Oh my god that’s enough words._

“Give me until one o’clock so I can pack up from the market. I should have something set out for you then.”

“Oh, okay.”

A corner of his mouth turns upwards. He starts to lift his hand, I see him do it, but he apparently decides it’s better for him to put both of his hands behind his back. He clears his throat.

“I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah, okay, um, bye.”

He turns, and walks back to his flowers.

I stare after him.

_Yes, hello, at this time I would like the entire earth to swallow me whole please?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for the kudos and comments, and thank you most of all for reading! xx


	3. Chapter 3

Cassandra is buzzing away at a client’s back when I enter the shop. She looks up at me and gives a nod, but immediately goes back to tattooing before I can wave back to her. We really are friends, I swear.

I feel Solas’ bag slipping from my shoulder, so I shrug the straps back into a steadier position, and head back to the office. I give a little yelp when I see Cullen sitting at Cassandra’s desk. He looks up at me over his glasses, and smiles.

What is he _doing_ here all the time?

“Here, I can take those.”

He reaches out with both hands for the bag of produce. I slip it from my shoulder, and hand the whole thing to him.

“Got it?” I ask. I can just imagine how Cassandra would react if we spilled blueberries all over her office floor. She pounds the suckers like popcorn, and it might actually break her heart.

Cullen reassures me that yeah, he’s got it, and he starts to unload the fruit and vegetables into the fridge behind the desk.

Confident that he knows how to put things into a refrigerator, I turn and start out the door.

“Oh, I think you left this in here.”

I frown, and turn back to Cullen, “Oh no, I didn’t get anything el—“

He’s holding out a small bundle of purple freesia, tied around the stem with twine, only slightly bruised from the contents of the bag.

“Oh, right, yeah, I definitely forgot about that thing I totally purchased, sorry, let me just…“

I fumble trying to find the right words, as the right words appear to be very, very far from my grasp.

Cullen lifts the delicate blooms to his nose.

“They smell nice,” he says, as innocently as he pleases, “here you go.”

He holds out the small bundle, and I pluck it from his fingers. Solas must have forgotten to take this bundle out of the bag at the market. I hope he’s not strict about tracking inventory, because I’m keeping them.

“Thank you.”

I stare down at the small flowers in my hand as I walk back into the storefront, and I check the schedule for the day behind the counter. Cassandra has this guy booked for the next two hours. I’m glad it’s not me behind the machine.

The Kit-Kat clock on the wall reads 12:30. The farmer’s market has been over for half an hour, and I’ve got at least half an hour to forty-five minutes to kill before I can head across the street. I obviously can’t go over right at one, because that would be weird.

So, I sit down, and I pull my sketchbook out of my backpack, open it up, and start to sketch the bundle of freesia.

I sketch it over and over again, from different angles, but I can’t help imagining Solas parting these blossoms from the others to cut this particular bundle, bringing the flowers up to his nose, his hair coming loose from the strict left-part he keeps, twirling the twine around the bundle with nimble hands.

I’m lazily shading in a petal when the door opens, and a blond probably 90 pounds soaking wet walks in.

“Oh,” I say, once I get a good look at her. She’s clearly cut her hair herself, and it wasn’t doing anyone any favors.

“Right,” she starts, “I turn eighteen next weekend, and I want to get a tattoo. I want an arrow, running up my side, my _left_ side, and I want it about this long.”

She gestures from her hipbone to just below her armpit.

“Is that something you can do, or not?”

“Oh, um,” I eye the clock.

1:15.

Shit, how did I miss that? I start capping my pens, and putting them into my bag.

“Right, yes, that’s something we can do, but until you’re eighteen, we really can’t do anything for you—“

“I said I turn eighteen next weekend,” she spits, and crosses her arms.

“Right, but really we shouldn’t even give you a consult without parental consent,” I sputter, “so I’m really sorry, but you’re going to have to come back next weekend. Then we can work something out. Really, you shouldn’t even be in here.”

The girl glares at me, but she’s young, and I can’t entirely blame her. Rules pissed me off at that age, too.

I give her an apologetic look and gesture toward the door.

“Sorry.”

She even sticks her tongue out at me before she leaves.

I shake my head to clear it of the weird of what just happened, and head across the street.

His shop looks different now. For one, he’s cleaned the windows. There’s a “Come on in, we’re open!” sign hanging in the door, and I laugh at the thought of Solas actually uttering the phrase, “Come on in, we’re open!” with any semblance of sincerity.

I open the door, and the bell attached to the doorframe announces my arrival.

Outside it is still warm from leftover summer air, but the shop is even a few degrees warmer. The air is wet and heavy with the scent of plant life and dirt. It still takes me a few seconds to adjust to the light.

“I’m putting in a skylight,” he says from the back of the shop, as if he can sense what I’m thinking.

I don’t jump this time when he speaks. I was expecting it.

“Yeah, isn’t it bad for the plants? The lack of light?”

“These are just the plants for display. They’ve already been cut, and at least for a short while, they will be fine without direct sunlight.”

“But where do you grow them?” I ask, and I worry that I’m bothering him with all the questions, but I can see his face soften, and there’s a trace of a smile in his voice when he answers me.

I notice that he’s untied his bow-tie, and it’s lying loose around his unbuttoned collar; his throat bare.

“I grow them in a greenhouse I own outside of town, by my house.”

“Oh,” I breathe, and I try to imagine for a second what Solas’ house might look like, but draw a blank.

“I have set something out for you, if you’d like,” he says, gesturing to the table in the back of the shop, where he must put together his arrangements. There is a series of different sized scissors, a small water bottle, a box of fabrics, ribbons, and decorative papers, and there in the center of the table a single orchid in a small, white vase.

“Just the one flower, then?”

He smiles.

“We all have to start somewhere, don’t we?”

I smile in response, take my bag over to the table, and sit down in the wooden desk chair.

“This… this isn’t going to bother you, is it? Me being here?”

“Not unless you insist on knocking over plants in the process.”

“Right, sorry about that.”

“Mmm,”

“But I really am, I want to make that clear –“

“Ellana,” He breathes, and I stop. “Are you here to converse, or are you here to draw?”

“Right.”

I turn back to my bag and pull out my sketchbook.

 _What are you doing? You can’t flirt with this guy. You can barely speak to him without screwing it up. Not only is he at least ten years older than you are, but you read_ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo _, you know that the quiet guys are the ones with the secret murder dungeons in the basement, and that they prey on hot women with tattoos. Let this one go, Ellana. Just observe from the sidelines. Let him be quiet and hot and stern and tie your wrists to his bedpost with his bowties—_

_Fuck._

I clench my jaw.

I _really_ miss the Peruvian chicken place.

-

It goes on like this for a week. Every day, around noon, I cross the street, and draw whatever Solas leaves out for me on the table. First it was the orchid by itself, then a different kind of orchid that grew flowers all along its stem, then hyacinths. I stick around for around three hours, drawing these flowers from any and every conceivable angle.

We never talk.

I don’t know what it is, but every time I enter the shop, it’s like I have the plague, and he disappears unless a customer comes in. Just M.I.A.

I don’t think he’s ever had another human being around him for an extended period of time. Either that, or he just hates me for some unsaid and therefore unknowable reason. It drives me insane.

So I think it really throws him when I invite him to Leliana’s party.

I’m in the middle of packing up my markers when he comes out from the back office to water the hanging plants with a water bottle, and I figure _now or never_.

“Hey, what are you doing tonight?”

He freezes mid water-bottle spray.

“I beg your pardon?”

I busy myself with very slowly putting the caps on my pens. Very slowly. So slowly. The slowest.

“Leliana is having a party tonight at _Nightingale._ Little get-together to try and rival the Homecoming bash happening over at the college. Oh, don’t worry. It won’t. It’s mostly people from the block getting together to eat some food that Leliana’s cooked, drink alcohol that Leliana bought, and listen to music that Leliana either plays or DJs. She throws good parties. You should come.”

He blinks, and then smiles, but he looks down at the floor. I think it’s a sad smile. It’s heavier than when he laughed at me at the farmer’s market, or when I asked to draw in his shop.

I think back to what Leliana said – _“I think he’s lonely._ ”

I don’t quite know what to say at this point. I don’t know Solas well enough to try and approach this wound, but I want him there.

“C’mon,” I nudge, “it would be really nice if you came.”

“I, ah, I do not really do parties anymore.”

I raise an eyebrow.

_Anymore?_

“Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find us.”

I shrug my backpack onto my shoulder, and as I walk past him, I catch the scent of smoke and sandalwood, the hint of old leather.

“I hope you change your mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, hello, I had to split this chapter and the next chapter into two pieces, because everything just got too long and unwieldy, so this one is a little uneventful whoops!!! thank you again for reading, commenting, and leaving kudos, etc! xx


	4. Chapter 4

I skip back across the street to Leliana’s, where she is busy turning the counter into a makeshift bar. Mostly it involves putting the register down in a cabinet below and covering the bare countertop in liquor, mixers, and cups.

 “Oh, Ellana, good – do you think you could doodle something for me on the blackboard? Something a bit more festive than the specials from today?”

I eye the wall she’s painted entirely in chalkboard paint to the right of the register. Currently, it’s informing customers of the various specialty pastries she cooked up for the day, and it pains me to erase such gorgeous lettering. But hey, it’s what the lady wants.

“What… what should I draw?” I ask, once the wall is clean.

“Geometric minimalism?” She chuckles.

Damn her.

I lift a piece of lavender chalk from the shelf next to the wall, and assess the blank wall in front of me. Some tiny triangles and well-spaced squares or honeycomb isn’t going to cut it here. I think back to the purple freesia Solas left in the bag he lent me last week. And so I draw them. From memory, I sketch out a giant stem of freesia, shading with blues and highlighting with white, and beneath the arching stem I write, “Happy Homecoming,” in a solid script, hint of old-school, clean lines.

“Huh,” I hear Leliana from behind me. I look back at her, and she’s got one hand on her hip, staring up at the wall.

“Flowers,” she smiles.

“Yeah,” I say, “flowers.”

-

Leliana is killer at putting parties together. She always seems to know just the right balance of people, booze, and food. I didn’t go to college, so I never really got the freshman rager experience, but I’ve been to enough of Leliana’s parties to know, however, that hers are way better by far.

There’s some music playing in the background -- just enough to know that’s it’s there, and just enough to mask conversation. Also, there are a bunch of people here. Definitely more people than I knew worked on this block, and more people than I figured Leliana knew. She’s full of surprises, that one.

Varric is back from visiting his family out in the suburbs (“I hate hospitals, Beansporout,” he moans to me when he saunters in) and he and Cassandra are at the same table, bickering about whether or not Varric can actually balance a spoon on his nose, or if it’s just because he’s leaning his head back.

Leliana’s invited her friend Josephine, a law-professor from the college, who seems to have brought her own plus one. He’s thin, with a healthy head of wavy brown hair, and the most stunning mustache I think I have ever seen. He can clearly hold his own with Leliana and Josephine, which is impressive in its own right, what with the silver tongues they’ve got planted squarely in their mouths.

“He’s gay, so don’t even think about it.”

Cullen has made his way across the room, and settles himself against the wall next to me.

“What? What, no… I wasn’t –“

He chuckles and runs his fingers through his hair. Curly, cropped close.

“I just thought I’d save myself from any secondhand embarrassment, in case you were thinking of going over there.”

“Ah, looking out for yourself. I can respect that.”

He’s holding a Beck’s non-alcoholic by the neck, between two fingers. I nod in the direction of his drink.

“You want me to go ahead and grab you a real drink?”

He stiffens.

“No, no, I’m fine with this. Thank you, though.”

“Oh. Right.”

I take a long sip from my own drink. It burns nicely going down as I mentally kick myself. Never point out a non-alcoholic beer to someone drinking a non-alcoholic beer because they probably definitely know that they’re drinking a non-alcoholic beer.

_Very sensitive of you, Ellana._

He coughs, and readjusts his glasses. Wire-rimmed. Very nerdy.

“I like the flowers.”

“What? Oh –“

He gestures with his drink to the chalkboard wall.

“It’s prettier than your usual stuff.”

“You know my usual stuff?”

I’ve never really noticed how tall Cullen is. He’s usually sitting behind a desk when I see him, but now I realize that he’s almost a foot taller than I am. I mean, I’m short, so most people are taller than I am, but _Jesus_ is Cullen tall.

“Well, yeah – I’ve seen some of your stuff tacked up on the wall next door. Very minimalist.”

“Yes!” I exclaim, a little too eager, and Cullen smiles, and I feel my cheeks go a bit more flushed than they should. I down the rest of my drink, and I can feel it sitting warm at the bottom of my stomach. 

I look over at ( _up_ at) Cullen, and his smile brings out a scar I’ve never seen before, which is ridiculous, because it takes up almost a quarter of his face. A diagonal slice from his cheekbone, down through his top lip.

“How’d you get that scar?” I ask, pointing at his face, my arm moving a bit more freely than usual, my tongue feeling a bit heavier in my mouth than I’m sure it usually does. Maybe two Jack and Gingers was two too many.

He laughs again.

_What is so funny about a question?_

“I, ah, I had a life before I became an accountant, you know. Dark and sordid past, all that.”

I’m pretty sure at least half of that is sarcasm.

“Right,” I snort, “chess club can get real dangerous sometimes.”

“Some of those pieces are very pointy, I’ll have you know.”

I put my head in my hands and laugh. He’s so funny. How come I’ve never noticed how funny he is?

Before I’m able to ask another question, Leliana is at my side, with her hand on the small of my back.

“Ellana, darling, won’t you grab me a glass of wine?” She kisses me on the cheek, and lightly pushes me from the wall toward the bar.

“You got it, _mon aimee_.”

I stumble toward the DIY-bar, and pour some Merlot into a wine glass I very, _very_ carefully extract from the stack behind the counter. Leliana is leaning toward Cullen, her brow furrowed, whispering intently, and she doesn’t look happy. Cullen gives her a non-committal shrug, and she hits him with a tea-towel.

Sometimes it feels like everyone around me has a history that I’m not a part of, and suddenly I feel a little sad. I recognize that this is a side effect of being drunk.

Oh, _I_ must be drunk.

“Huh,” I say out loud to myself.

I decide I’m keeping Leliana’s glass of wine. I don’t think she really wanted it anyway.  

I look around the coffee shop, and it’s starting to feel a little more cramped than it did before. Josephine’s gay date is in the corner chatting up some broad-chested jock-type, and now Varric is trying to balance a spoon on Cassandra’s nose while some of their friends cheer her on. _She_ mustbe drunk, too.

It’s getting too warm for me, so I take my new glass of wine and head outside.

The temperature is only just starting to drop in the evenings, and there’s a slight chill in the air. It’s very welcome; out here I can feel how feverish my cheeks are.

Why is it that it’s not until you’re on your own at a party that you realize how drunk you are? The street is spinning, so I lean against the window to the coffee shop, and take a sip of wine.

_In for the penny, in for the pound._

The wine is warm, acidic on my tongue, and leaves a kind of film on the inside of my mouth. I smack my lips a few times to get the feeling gone, and that’s when I notice the shadow approaching my shadow on the sidewalk.

I freeze with my tongue sticking out of my mouth, holding a half-empty glass of wine, staring Solas dead in the eye.

Literally why does this always happen to me.

I immediately straighten, and put my tongue back where it belongs.

“You changed your mind.”

“Is this a bad time?” he asks, and I want to punch him.

“I forgot that wine does this to my mouth,” I say, pointing to my face, and then I want to punch _me_.

He gives a close-mouthed chuckle. The sound comes from the back of his throat, and it’s delicious. _He’s_ delicious.

“And, um, I think Cullen was flirting with me? Which is weird, y’know, because he’s an accountant.”

_What are you saying. Why are you doing this to yourself._

“Nothing could be more terrible.”

“Right? But do you know what else is terrible?” I gesticulate with the hand holding the wine glass, and a few drops escape onto my shirt, staining it. “Because I am 110 pounds, I get drunk way too fast.”

He steps forward, closing the space between us, and I can see his breath in the night air.

“Let me take that from you, then.”

He delicately plucks the wine glass from my hand, as if it were a flower, and sets it on the windowsill to the coffee shop.

I look up at him, up at the acne scar above his eyebrow.

“Hey, Solas,” I begin, and I think I feel something in the back of my brain going _alert alert alert,_ but it gets drowned out by the drinks circulating around my bloodstream.

“Why don’t you ever actually talk to me? Other people talk to me, and they say words. Words like this that mean things, but you don’t.”

And now I want to completely sever the connection between my brain and my tongue altogether. It’s like I’m stuck inside my body, hearing myself say the words, but I can’t stop them from falling out on the ground in a giant pile of words vomit. I’m the human embodiment of a train wreck, and I can’t look away.

“I just want to be friends,” I hear myself say. Which isn’t entirely accurate. Unless there’s a new definition of friendship that involves shoving tongues into each other’s mouths. "I want to know you."

Solas looks down at the ground and shoves his hands in his pocket.

“You want to know me?”

“Yes, yes I do. Very much.”

I watch as he shifts his weight from his heels to the balls of his feet and back again. It’s so subtle, I might not have noticed it. But I’m staring at his loafers again.

“Alright.”

“Wait, really?”

That sobers me up a bit, and his eyes meet mine.

“If you’d rather not—“

“No, I do—“

He takes a second to look inside the shop. People are laughing, talking, eating, drinking; it’s cramped, and looks decidedly inappropriate for conversation. It’s strange to know that with the lights on in there, we can see everyone inside, but no one can really see us standing outside.

“Perhaps we could go somewhere a little more interesting?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! I have a busy week ahead of me, so the next chapter MAY not be up until friday........ I promise it'll be worth the wait!! okay byeeee bye bye bye xx


	5. Chapter 5

The Museum of Contemporary Art is technically a part of the larger campus, but they’ve clearly put a lot of money into it, because it doesn’t look like a regular college hall. It’s a beautiful building: clear art deco inspiration, clean lines, stucco walls.

It is a beautiful building that Solas is breaking into.

“So you find breaking and entering _interesting_ , Solas?” I hiss.

He looks up at me from his crouched position by the side door.

“Are you telling me that you do not?”

I bite my lip. I don’t quite know how to qualify _what_ I feel right now. I know I'm sober enough to recognize that I’m drunk enough not to protest committing a misdemeanor B &E.

I watch as he picks the lock. He’d had his own set of lock-picking tools _already in his pocket_ when we got there. I don’t know if he’d had this in mind from the outset, or if he just carries them around with him at all times. I also don’t know which of those two options I find sexier.

I watch as he deftly maneuvers the hook pick around the torsion wrench, moving it in slow half-circles with the tips of his fingers. He’s not even looking at the lock, eyes cast downward, biting his lip. Green thumb, skilled fingers. Experienced hands.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes.

 _Don’t even think about it_.

It only takes a few more seconds before a hollow click comes from inside the door, and he removes the lock pick. He doesn’t stand up or even open the door right away, electing instead to wipe his picks clean of dirt and grime before tucking each piece sweetly back into their own pockets inside their canvas case. He rolls the set back up, and ties the strap around.

“Shall we?”

He stands, opens the door, and gestures that I should enter before he does. He’s smiling; proud of what he’s done.

I cross my arms.

“This had better not be because you want me to set off the alarm first, so I can take the fall for you,”

His smile falters.

“I can promise you it’s not.”

I step over the threshold, and am almost immediately overwhelmed by how quiet the space is. The room is large, and the ceiling is high, with a huge mobile of steel and painted corrugated metal hanging in the center of the room. I watch the hanging pieces move slowly and silently in the dark.

We’ve come in to the lobby of the museum via the security entrance (ha), so I’ve never seen the building from this angle. There is only a little bit of light coming from the garden floodlamps outside, but it’s enough to move around by.

I can feel the alcohol still in my system. The walk over had sobered me slightly, but I couldn’t deny how heavy my feet felt, or the buzzing feeling from my head to my toes. The kind of buzz I couldn’t just chalk up to adrenaline.

Solas glides past me, turning to give me a small smirk before heading into the rest of the museum.

 _Bastard_.

I follow him into the first gallery. It’s devoted to a series of rectangular glass sculptures, standing like half-completed columns or empty pedestals throughout the room. Solas weaves his way through them, so I do too. I am paying considerable attention to how I’m holding my body, aware that any bit of semi-drunken clumsiness is going to send me toppling into a fragile and probably priceless work of art, which is less than desirable. But with only angled gallery lamps to guide the way, walking is a task more easily said than done.

Solas, however, moves through the space as easily as breathing. The obstacle course of contemporary sculpture like second nature; one foot in front of the other. Shoulder back, hands in his pockets, he’s already in the other gallery before I’m halfway through the room.

Once I make it through the sculptures, I half-jog to the next gallery. This one has a collection of drawings and illustrations framed on the walls in small, black frames. 

Towards the other end of the room, I spy a Solas-shaped shadow standing in front of a painting.

“Solas,” I whisper as I cross the gallery floor toward him, “ _why_ are we here exactly?”

“Museums are fascinating places,” he says, not turning to me, “collections of all we know or once knew about one subject in particular.”

I settle in next to him and look at the painting that has his attention. From the surface, it looks like a black inkwash painting of a ship at sea, but upon closer look, I realize that it’s watercolor. The paint is so dark and rich I had mistaken the deep blues and greens for blacks.

“I used to be an artist like you,” he says, but he says it so quietly I can hardly hear him. I wonder if he’s speaking to me or the painting.

A few seconds pass, but I don’t look at him. I can feel how close he is to me.

_Don’t think about it._

“Um, you were a tattoo artist?”

I try and imagine Solas behind a machine, thumbing away stray ink, getting lost in the zen of becoming a permanent part of someone else’s skin.

It is surprisingly easy to picture.

“No,” he says, “watercolors. Oils, sometimes. Acrylics.”

“What did you paint?”

He smiles, and turns to look at me.

“Flowers. Botanicals. I sold prints to science journals, biology textbooks. That sort of thing.”

“Oh. That’s really… you.”

“I’m surprised you think you know me well enough to assume what is or what is not something I might do.”

I scowl, and he smirks, and it looks different. It’s not just the sparse lighting in the gallery, the way it hollows out his cheekbones. _He_ looks different here; the way he’s standing. Crossed arms, shoulders back, chin up, contrapasto.

He’s standing like someone who might play pretend that he’s a small-town florist, but who isn’t really a small-town florist, maybe never was a small-town florist. He’s someone who’s done something like this before, someone who--

“Solas,” I whisper, “What kind of florist carries lockpicks around with him?”

He chuckles, but he doesn’t break my gaze.

“The resourceful kind.”

I don’t know what it is about the comeback that does it for me, just that it does. It breaks me.

I blink, and the wall in between what my brain thinks is a good idea and what it actually acts on comes tearing down, and I find myself rushing forward to close the space between us, curling my fingers around his jaw to bring his lips down to meet mine.

And then time freezes as the realization of my terrible, terrible idea comes crashing down around me like it’s raining bricks.

_Well, you’ve really shit this one up._

I breathe in deeply through my nose, open my eyes, and push myself off of his chest. I can’t even look at him, I’m booking it out of there so fast.

**_Fuck_.**

That’s when I feel something tug at the crook of my elbow, and it catches me so off-guard I have no chance to react before I’m swept up in the momentum of being turned around and colliding with Solas.

This time, it’s him kissing me. Roughly.

I am struck by the urgency in it, his thumbs pressing into my cheekbones, pulling me up to him. I curl my arms around his shoulders, and his hands leave my face to quickly find my waist, the small of my back, the curve of my hips. His touch is hungry and feverish, fingers digging into me, and where his skin meets mine is electric.

I moan into his mouth, meeting his level of desperation in how I’m kissing him, as if this were the first and last kiss of my life. He pushes me backwards, up against the wall between a watercolor and a pen-and-ink.

 I feel my every hair stand on end. My knees cease to be anything I might have once called knees.

“Solas,” I gasp, feeling his body flush against mine, and I feel him pinning my wrist to the wall above my head.

He ducks his head to kiss underneath my ear, where my jaw and neck meet when –

“Please step back.”

Solas practically flies off of me, my arm left hanging limply above my head.

“What—“

“Please step back.”

I squint, trying to see who is in the gallery with us, when I realize: it’s an automated recording, warning us that we’ve gotten too close to the artwork.  

I look down at the gallery floor, where a line of black tape has been laid out just an inch beyond the toe of my shoe. I step over it, and the recording stops repeating itself.

“Solas?”

I can see him toward the middle of the room. He’s rubbing his jaw with his hand, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry – I can’t… We shouldn’t—it’s not right, and we shouldn’t have—“

His voice is low, his breath sharp and shallow, cutting himself off before he can even finish a thought.

“What are you on about? We shouldn’t have broken into the museum? Yeah, that’s illegal – “  

“No.”

It’s a sharp “ _No_ ,” and just like that, with a word, he regains composure. He straightens his spine, smooths his collar, and suddenly he’s the same man I saw watering cactuses with a water bottle a hew hours ago. A small-town florist.

He doesn’t look at me.

“We can’t. Wake up, Ellana. Don’t be a child.”

It’s like a slap to the face.

I’m frozen, standing paralyzed as he walks out of the gallery, my mouth open, blinking away hot tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> coldplay's "nobody said it was easy" plays quietly in the distance
> 
> thank you so much for reading!! xx


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning when my alarm goes off, I hit the snooze button.

Seven times.

I go to hit the snooze for an eighth time, but my phone doesn’t respond. I push myself up onto my elbows and squint at the screen, only to realize that a) I have six unread texts from Cassandra, and b) the buzzing noise is coming from the intercom on the wall.

I scowl at the small plastic box next to the front door, and I don’t look at the texts.

Neither my mood nor my state of undress are suitable for human interaction this morning. I refuse to put on pants, let alone any kind of reasonable _outfit_.

I fall back onto my pillow and let all the air out of my lungs in what might just be the longest sigh ever heaved by man. I feel the pillowcase go hot with my breath, roll over, and pull the covers up over my head.

Why is it that the memories you want to suppress are the ones most likely to work their way back into your brain?

Granted, it’s not exactly like the events of last night are far enough away to warrant being called memories. I’m even wearing the same shirt, for god’s sake.

I look down at my sleeve, the red wine stain there in three splotches.

 _“Wake up,”_ he’d said, “ _don’t be a child.”_

I clench and unclench my hand into fists, trying to force myself to erase the memory of the way he pinned me to the wall, how he’d traced the outline of my lips with his tongue when he kissed me.

How did he have any right to be angry with _me_?

 _He_ was the one who’d used _tongue_.

I had stood there in the gallery for easily another five minutes after he’d left, sure he was going to come back and apologize, to walk me home, tell me he was sorry a hundred times and kiss me again. But he hadn’t come back.

He’d left me alone.

I clench my jaw and close my eyes as tight as I can. I lightly hit my thigh a couple of times with a closed fist trying to remind myself that yes, I’m here now in my own skin, that time is moving forward and far away from when I embarrassed myself in a contemporary art museum after dark on four shots of whiskey, some ginger ale, and half a glass of red wine.

I’m brought back to reality and out of my pity party when my phone rings. It’s an unknown number, and I’m tempted to let it go to voicemail (I’ve had enough surprise phone calls from police stations and hospitals to be a little phone shy. Once burned, shame on me or whatever), but I think I’m ready for a distraction right now.

I slide the little green phone icon across the screen, wondering for a second if it might be--

“’Lo?”

“Ellana?”

It’s Leliana. I don't know who I was expecting.

 “Leliana? Whose phone are you using?”

 “I accidentally left my phone at home, so I’m borrowing one of my barista’s. Are you in?”

“Um, yes?”

“Are you sure?”

She sounds so earnest that I actually look around my apartment, as if maybe I’m mistaken. Maybe the last 12 hours have just been some crazy, horrible dream.

“I think so?”

“Oh. I had hoped that maybe… I ask, because I tried the buzzer and –“

“That was _you_?”

She laughs.

“Yes, my love. I’ve brought donuts.”

I hang up and immediately go to the intercom and buzz her in.

I take a quick survey of my apartment. It’s not exactly guest-ready, but I’m at least relatively certain that there isn’t any dirty laundry lying around. It’s not like Leliana will care that much anyway.

I throw on a pair of leggings that had been strewn over my desk chair, and manage to get an embarrassingly large stack of teacups, coffee mugs, and plates off of my desk and into the sink before I hear a knock at the door.

I swing it open to see Leliana standing there, brown paper bag and coffee carrier in her perfectly manicured hands. The stamp on the coffee sleeves reads, “Nightingale.”

Bless her.

“I come bearing gifts,” she says.

I step back and open the door wider, inviting her in.

“Sorry there isn’t really anywhere to sit,” I say, giving a pointed look to the couch covered in books and paper.

My apartment isn’t huge – standard studio size, maybe 600 square feet? Enough room for a couch, a desk, AND a double bed without it feeling too crowded. I know, I live a life of luxury.

“Oh, don’t concern yourself with me,” she says, setting the coffee carrier down at my desk, making herself comfortable in the rolling chair. She sits cross legged, and holds the bag out for me.

I make myself comfortable on my bed; still warm from when I was asleep not even ten minutes ago. Oh god, my hair must look _awful_. I try to casually run my fingers through to assess the possible damage, and smooth it.

“I know that when you’re hung over, you won’t get out of bed for anything less than half a dozen.”

I’m not exactly hung over, but I guess that must be the story. It works well enough for me. I tear into the bag to see six glorious donut holes: no glaze, no powdered sugar, simply filled with raspberry jelly.

“You _get me_ , Leliana.”

“Varric has a client or else he’d come, too. You know how much he loves to torment you when you’re in a state of vulnerability.”

I pop a donut in my mouth.

“Good thing he’s _not_ here then.”

I chew in silence for a few seconds, and Leliana busies herself by playing with an x-acto knife she finds on my desk.

“So,” she starts.

I freeze mid-chew.

“What.”

It’s more of a statement than a question.

“That florist hasn’t opened his shop yet today.”

My eyes dart to the clock behind Leliana’s head. It’s almost noon.

“Varric saw him come in this morning, but it’s still dark. I think he’s holed himself up in the back room.”

“Maybe he doesn’t work on Sundays.”

She smiles.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice your little Houdini act last night. I never got my glass of wine.”

“I didn’t think you wanted it!” I exclaim, staring into the bag.

“Where _did_ you run off to?”

“Hey, Leliana, how do you get the jelly _into_ the donut? Do you have like, a jelly gun or a plunger—“

“And I found the note you left in the wine glass, so I know you know that I know—“

My head snaps up.

“Wait, what?”

Leliana shrugs.

“I just assumed the apologetic note was from you. Here –“

She twists in the chair so that she can get something out of her back pocket and hands it to me.

“I found it in an empty wine glass on the windowsill of the shop when I went home this morning. I figured you left it there for me, since I was busy talking with Cullen when you left.”

The note is creased where Leliana must have folded it, and the handwriting is too familiar.

“Sorry,” is all it says.

I feel my face get hot, and my vision goes blurrier than I’d like to admit.

“Oh, Leliana, that’s not my handwriting…” I say, trailing off.

She frowns.

“It’s not? I just figured, because on the wall, the way you wrote –“

“It was… inspired,” I say, forcing a small smile.

“Oh no,” she says quietly. “I’ve messed something up here, haven’t I? I am normally more observant, I suppose I just hoped that…”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Well, at least you have the donuts!” She chirps.

_She certainly tries, doesn’t she?_

“We – we kissed.”

She lifts her eyebrows expectantly at me.

“It didn’t go well.”

“Oh. He didn’t try to… make you do anything you didn’t want, did he?”

“God no!”

“I’m just making sure,” she says, holding her hands up to prove her innocence.

“He just,” I bite my lip, trying to figure out how to best put it into words, “he decided that it was a mistake. He called me a child, and then he left.”

Leliana makes a disgusted noise, and I laugh, suddenly feeling a lot freer now that I had shared it with someone.

“He thinks that _you’re_ the child here? It seems to me that running off and having a tantrum, passing notes -- _that_ is the more childish behavior.”

I shrug, and bite into another donut.

“He has a point, I suppose. I guess I’m just trying to reassure myself that _I_ didn’t do something wrong.”

“Ellana, my beautiful rose, you need to give this man a piece of your mind.”

“I do?”

Leliana nods solemnly.

I mean, I _was_ planning on just sitting in bed and watching all eight Harry Potter movies back to back and eating nothing but microwave popcorn and drinking Ginger Ale because that’s what I _do_ when the world throws a wrench into everything, but…

“Alright, yeah, maybe I do!”

I leap up, and the bag of donuts topples off of the bed, the remaining donut rounds rolling out from the bag.

“After I finish these donuts!”

“Oh, Ellana, they’ve been on the floor.”

“Five-second rule, Leliana.”

-

Leliana helps me pick out what to wear that day not because I asked her to, but because it’s the kind of thing that makes her happy. It helps that she picks out one of my favorite dresses.

“Oh this one, definitely,” she had said, thrusting the dress in my direction without even looking at me.

The pattern is of an astrological map, mapping out the constellations with white stars and lines on a blue background.

“He’ll be seeing stars.”

I roll my eyes at the pun, but I shimmy the dress on anyway, lace on a pair of boots, and then we’re off.

The ride to town in her car only takes a few minutes, and before I know it, I’m standing in front of Solas’ door. The sign says, “Sorry, we’re closed,” but I can see him moving around in the back.

I smooth down the wrinkles in my dress. Are there even any wrinkles to smooth? I don’t know. Maybe I’m smoothing out the potential for future wrinkles, or something.

_Okay. Okay, you can do this. Just remember to breathe._

I take a deep breath, and open the door. The bell chimes.

Thank god it’s unlocked, because how embarrassing would that have been?

“I think you owe me an apology,” I say, and I’m surprised by how steady, how clear, how calm my voice sounds. I’m not even shaking. Usually I shake.

It’s not that I shake because I’m scared, or nervous, but because when I get angry, my body shivers. It’s involuntary, and it pisses me off, because it makes people think I’m more nervous than I actually am. Anway. I’m not doing it right now.

Right now I’m staring at Solas, scowling so hard I swear my eyebrows must be Frida Kahlo-ing it.

He’s in the middle of repotting a plant, holding a large clump of dirt in one gloved hand, and a cactus in the other. He sets both down, and begins to take off his gloves.

“I think you are correct,” he says.

“You – wh… you do?”

“The kiss was… rash and impulsive. I wasn’t thinking, and I shouldn’t have encouraged it. I apologize for that, and for the way I reacted. It was unfair.”

Oh. I don’t know what to say to that.

I blink a few times, but the scowl stays.

“I don’t know what to say to that.”

All else fails, speak your mind.

“Were you not expecting an apology?”

I don’t tell him that he’s right.

“You _did_ encourage it, Solas.”

He gives a half nod, considering what I’ve said.

“I suppose in a _way_ , I did, but –“

I take a step toward him.

“What, does it not count if you leave me a note saying ‘take backsies’?”

He laughs, and I want to hate him for it. But I can’t. There’s something about him here that puts me at ease, and the whole situation feels ridiculous now. Like we’re old friends laughing about a drunken kiss from years ago that neither of us quite remembers.

“You could have said something. You didn’t have to leave me there.”

He looks down at his hands, and he seems smaller somehow. He starts to say something, then rethinks it. He tries again.

“It has been a long time. I needed to think about it – I still need to think about it.”

He looks up at me.

“I’ve got time, Solas.”

I swear he almost smiles.

“This… has the potential to be trouble, Ellana. I’m not sure that it is the best idea.”                                                    

I have to admit that I’ve never been very good at these kinds of things, at having Moments With People. I mean, I’m half-tempted to lighten the mood by rolling down my socks to show him a shin-piece I got a few years ago that reads “Here comes trouble” on a banner, but decide against it.

“Solas,” I say instead, “trouble is my middle name. Let’s give this a shot.”

I can always show him the tattoo later.

His face softens, and his shoulders relax.

“Alright then,” he says, and puts his gloves back on, resuming the repotting. “So, Ellana Trouble Lavellan, how did you sleep?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for a hot second, it was going to be cullen who brought her donuts. then i was all like, "ohhh nooo don't do that to the poor girl"
> 
> thank you so much for reading and commenting and being such PALS!! xx


	7. Chapter 7

“You can’t just ignore my texts and not show up to work at all,” Cassandra drolly says to me when I roll into the shop at quarter-to-one. She and Varric are on a lunch break, finishing up sandwiches ( _caprese_ panini for Cass and a BLT for Varric).

I set my bag down on the window seat, and I’m smiling. I can’t help it. I feel like laughing, or screaming, or I don’t know, _something_. I put my hands on my hips, then cross them, then put them back on my hips.

What do people do with their hands again?

“If I’m still an apprentice, I make my own hours, Cass. If you want me on a stricter schedule, y’know all you have to do is…”

“You got another letter,” she cuts me off, and I lift an eyebrow.

“Did you put it in the box?” I ask.

“You mean the mysterious box full of unopened letters, all from the same address? Yeah, Beansprout, we put it in your creepy box.”

I laugh in spite of myself. Nothing can bring me down. I feel like my head is a hot-air balloon.

“Y’know, one day,” Varric says, wiping his mouth with a napkin, “you’re going to tell us who keeps writing you from _prison_.”

I busy myself with pulling out my sketchbook from my bag and settle down on the cushioned bench in the window.

“Mmm, maybe one day you’ll ask.”

Varric and Cassandra exchange looks.

“Alright, I’ll bite. Who keeps sending you letters with semi-regularity from a correctional facility upstate that you have _never opened_ , to the best of my knowledge, not even once?”

I shrug.

“My mom.”

Cassandra chokes on her panini.

I sort of relish telling people that my mom is in jail. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a shame, a tragedy, whatever, blah blah blah, but I never actually _knew_ the woman. She got herself put there before I was old enough to walk, and it’s because of that I got shipped around in foster-care until I ended up with the Lavellans at the age of eight in communal living on a farm about an hour north. They’re the family I choose to acknowledge.

When I tell people that my birth mother is in jail, it’s kind of like a test. Are they going to be a dick and try and get some voyeuristic pity-pleasure liberal-guilt about it, or are they going to be a human being?

“Well, shit.”

Varric Tethras: the latter.

“That’s – that’s – I am… sorry to hear that, Ellana.”

Cassandra Pentaghast: from a family of formers, but delightfully the latter.

“Keep it in the box.”

“Yeah.”

Varric noisily wraps up the remnants of his sandwich, wipes his face with a napkin, and stands.

“Well. Now that _that_ is awkwardly out of the way and I’m sure will never come back to bite us in the ass, I’ve got a consultation to prep for.”

He looks at me.

“You wanna sit in? Then we’re going out for drinks afterwards.”

I shrug.

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Leliana and Josephine are taking the new philosophy professor out for drinks to celebrate getting through the first few weeks of classes, and they invited us to come, too.”

I look at Cassandra.

“You, too?”

“I do occasionally have _fun_ , Ellana.”

“I never meant to imply that you didn’t, Cass.”

Cassandra tuts, and rolls up her sandwich wrapper. She stands up, collects her and Varric’s trash and disposes of them in the can by Varric’s workstation.

“I don’t suppose you want to submit some new portfolio work by the end of the week?”

 I look down at my sketchbook, fingering through a few of the most recent pages. The hyacinths could use some work, the freesia looks pretty alright, and I’m downright proud of one orchid sketch.

“You got it, boss.”

-

Varric’s consultation is with the blonde who’d come into the shop a week earlier – the one who had just turned eighteen and desperately wanted to prove it with some tattoos. It turns out she and Varric have a weird amount in common: they both took archery in high school and they both hate their hometowns. She talks a lot, and doesn’t seem to have a filter when it comes to personal information.  

I try and keep quiet, but this girl is both borderline insufferable and moderately endearing, so I can’t help but laugh when she makes fart noises as Varric tries to explain to her the history of traditional tattooing and Americana. That’s his _thing_ , and she just crushes it right in front of his face.

“Why would I want something black and boring, when I could have something be all bright and shiny with _color_?” She asks him.

I can hear Varric starting to get exasperated.

“Well, there’s no reason why you _can’t_ , but there’s a certain _gravitas_ to –“

“Shove _gravitas_ , I want—“

“What about watercolor?” I hear myself say, and it must have struck a chord because the girl shuts up.

Varric glares at me. I know I’ve made a mistake. Never offer a client something you can’t do.

“Something you want to add, Lavellan?”

Ouch. He’s used my real name. I shift a little on the stool.

“You could have a solid black outline, very traditional, but do a watercolor-inspired coloring. Kind of like, um… here…”

I cross over to Varric’s desk and lay a piece of tracing paper over an arrow he’s already drawn. I pull some markers from his pen holder, and quickly lay down a few quick strokes of color in the general shape of the arrow. When I’m finished, I layer it underneath Varric’s drawing.

It adds a bit of depth to the piece, making it look like the arrow’s in motion.

“Um, this way, y’know, you get that traditional inspiration, but you’re very clearly breaking away from it.”

The girl leans over the desk.

“Yup, that. That’s the one. That’s what I want.”

I shoot an apologetic look to Varric, who rolls his eyes and sighs.

“And who is going to tattoo it?” He says to me, his voice low and purposefully drawn out.

“Um, I suppose you could do the outline, and then she can come back and get me to color it during another session? After the outline has healed. The whole thing shouldn’t take more than an hour and a half, tops.”

“Ugh, quick talking, let’s book it.”

I skulk back from Varric’s desk and let them sort out the details.

I don’t do color. I don’t do flow. Cass certainly doesn’t do much color work if she can avoid it. _Varric’s_ our color guy.

I feel like kind of a dick, to be honest.

Varric finishes up with her, and I hear him book her for the outline a week from today. That gives me about two and a half weeks to sort myself out.

“Varric I’m –“

“Don’t, Beansprout. Just set yourself up with some pigskins and we’ll figure it out.”

-

“Are you all set, Cass?” I call to the back of the shop, throwing my coat on. Varric is tidying up his desk, doing all of his regular six o'clock Sunday closing activities.

“Did you empty the trash?” She asks.

“Yeah, you saw me do it.”

“Oh, right. Right.”

She walks out of the back office, shrugging her jacket on and tying a purple scarf around her neck. I stare at her while she pats all of her pockets at least six times.

“I’m pretty sure you’d notice by now if you didn’t have everything you needed.”

“Measure twice, cut once, Ellana.”

Leave it to Cass to use rules for woodwork in real life.

I open the door to the shop, and motion for everyone to leave.

“Alright gang, let’s vacate the premises,” I say, and Varric chuckles and repeats the word ‘gang’ in disbelief under his breath as he walks past me.

Leliana is already waiting for us outside, pulling on a pair of knit wrist warmers. She walks over to me while Cassandra locks the door, and elbows me in the ribs.

“Ow!”

“So?”

I rub my side.

“So, what?”

“Did you talk to him?”

She looks over across the street to Solas’ and mimes slitting her own throat.

“Oh, right, that, well… Not exactly, we --”

“Leliana!”

Josephine has just turned the corner at the end of the block, and waves her hands in our direction.

“Later, yes? You must tell me _everything_.”

Leliana turns around to chat with Josephine, and I silently hope I can hold that conversation at bay for a while.

“Alright Beansprout, are we walking or driving?”

“Walking, of course, Varric,” says Cassandra before I can answer, “It’s only a ten minute walk.”

“Yeah, for _your_ legs, maybe,” he mutters.

“Wait, which bar are we going to? Dorian just texted me, and he might be late.” Josephine says, bringing herself and Leliana closer to our group.

Cassandra says something about not wanting to go to one of the more studenty hangouts, but I get distracted when I hear a shop bell ring across the street.

I look over to see that Solas has turned off the lights in his shop for the night, and he’s locking up.

In a mild panic, I look over at Leliana, who is trying to convince everyone to go to a bar that’s just opened on the other side of town, but she hasn’t noticed Solas yet. I look back in his direction, and he’s just now turning around. His eyes meet mine, and my breath hitches in my throat.

What's the appropriate way to say hello to someone from across the street when the both of you have just sort of admitted that you have terrible semi-secret feelings for the other?

I smile and offer a small wave, and I think he surprises himself when he sends a small wave back in my direction. I can feel my smile get wider, and I pull my coat around myself a little tighter.

“Ellana? What do you think?” Josephine’s question pulls my attention back to the group.

“What? Oh, I don’t –“

“What are you looking at?” Leliana turns to see Solas standing in front of his shop, and he offers her a small wave.

“What does he want?” She asks. I notice she does not wave back.

_abort abort abort_

“Y’know what, let me just go on over there and ask him, yeah?” My voice is higher than usual. God damn it. “You guys just... just stay right here. I will be right back.”

Leliana gives me a strange look, but I couldn’t give two shits, and I head over to where Solas is standing.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey,” he says back.

Stellar opening. Four stars.

“Are you guys heading out?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, we’re – we’re just all getting drinks. There’s some new professor that Josephine is working with, and I guess she wants to like, bring him into the fold or something.”

“That’s kind of her.”

“Yeah, yeah, Josephine is great. She’s the kindest.”

I swallow.

“So. Do you, uh, do you want to come with us?”

“Oh –“

“I mean, you don’t have you if you don’t want to it’s just—“

“No, no, I’d love to, it’s just that I would hate to impose.”

“Impose? Who’s imposing?”

He nods in the direction of behind me, and I turn around to see Leliana shooting daggers with her eyes. Everyone else just looks mildly uncomfortable and confused.

“Oh, that’s just Leliana. Her eyes are like that. C’mon, no one has had the chance to meet you yet since you skipped out on the Homecoming party.”

I reach out to grab his arm, but in the last second decide against it and end up making an awkward, yet vaguely jaunty, arm gesture.  

“Since _we_.”

“Sorry?”

“Since _we_ skipped out on the party.”

_Oh my god he's been thinking about it._

“Yes. That. We.”

The corner of his mouth twitches.

“Alright.”

“Great! Let’s,” I gesture behind me, “let’s go then.”

I turn and head back to Leliana and try not to trip over my own feet when I can tell that Solas is following me.

“Everyone,” I say at the curb, “this is Solas. Solas runs the florist’s. He’s the new Mama Flan. Solas, this is everyone.”

There is a small chorus of hellos and hi how are yous from everyone but Leliana. Solas is very polite, and shakes everyone’s hands while I make giant bug eyes at Leliana, trying to get her to be nice.

“We’ve met,” she says when Solas goes to shake her hand, and I sigh.

“Alright, well, Dorian says that he’ll meet us there, so I guess we’ll just head on over then,” Josephine says, typing something into her phone, and we all start walking.

I guess Varric lost the walk/drive fight.

I hang back and walk with Solas, who has his hands in his pockets to keep them warm, and we start walking in tandem with each other.  

“Your friends seems nice,” he laughs.

“Oh, they are,” I say, pulling out my phone to shoot Leliana a text, but I remember that she said she left her phone at home. I quickly weigh the idea of sending her a hundred texts for her to come home to, but decide it’s not worth the strain on my thumbs. I put my phone back in my pocket.

“So, how was the rest of your day? Anything to report of interest?” Solas asks after a few seconds of silence.

“Oh, nothing much. I just royally screwed up one of Varric’s consultations by suggesting we work with a style I’ve never done before. Just keeping it casual.”

“You say my name, Beansprout?”

Varric turns, and starts to walk with us.

“Just remarking on how I’ve booked myself in to tattoo something I’m not sure I can do and it’s going to be on someone else’s body forever.”

“We’ll get you on some practice skins. It’s just laying down the lightest bit of color. You’ll be fine.”

I look over at Solas, who I’m not sure is following any of this.

“Varric is just being nice.”

“Ellana is more than capable.”

Solas smiles.

“I’m sure she is.”

I blush. I don’t know why I’m blushing (he thinks I’m _capable_ ), but I’m definitely thankful that the sun is setting, making the absolute strawberry redness of my face more difficult to see.

“Do you know where we’re going, Varric?”

“Some bar Leliana picked out. It’s just called _Secrets_ , so don’t look to me if it turns out to be a strip joint,” he laughs. “That girl is into some weird shit.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a bit of a walk, so I hope you’re ready for that,” he huffs. “’Cos I’m sure as hell not.”

I hear Solas laugh to my left, and Varric muttering to my right, and as we walk to the other side of town, things are starting to feel pretty alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is another section that just got too long for me to warrant being one chapter. 'more than 2500 words in one chapter???' i say to my computer, 'impossible!!!!'
> 
> thanks for reading, as always! xx


	8. Chapter 8

“Come on Dorian, you can’t be serious! In the _library_?”

“Hand to god. The quarterback is on his knees unbuckling my belt and I’m looking at those _glorious_ shoulders, and I know I just won’t be able to keep quiet, so I pick up a book of Kant! Now here we are, one master’s degree and a PhD later. Let’s just say I was _inspired_.”

“You’re saying that you had sex that was good enough to power you through an entire doctoral dissertation?” Cassandra asks incredulously.

Dorian responds by merely waggling his eyebrows up and down over his pint and takes a long sip that leaves him with foam in his mustache. Josephine and Varric are pissing themselves with laughter, and I look over at Solas, who despite not having said anything all evening, appears to be enjoying himself.

I’m very aware of the fact that our thighs are touching.

“Well, Cassandra?” Leliana asks salaciously, dramatically holding up her martini glass. “Where is the most ridiculous place _you’ve_ had sex?”

Varric laughs even harder as Cassandra goes a little pink in the cheeks.

“Oh come on,” I say, “don’t tell me we’re going around the circle with this now?”

“Dorian has peaked my interest! And I’m sure Miss Pentaghast has some wild stories up her sleeve.”

“Tch, Leliana, wild stories hidden up sleeves are more _your_ style. I am more likely to put wild stories _on_ sleeves.”

“A fair point!” Leliana cheers, and hits her glass to Cassandra’s stationary pint glass, and she shakes her head with a smile.

“Besides,” Varric says, coming up for air. “I can guarantee you don’t want to go down the path of romantic horror stories that Eagle Eyes over here has managed to compile.”

Leliana giggles into the last of her martini, and Cassandra stabs an olive with a toothpick from the plate in the center of the table.

“I’ve got one.”

Everyone turns to look at Solas.

“You’ve got one what?”

“I’ve got a story, if we still are going to go around the circle.”

“Oh, this I have _got_ to hear,” Leliana says, leaning back into her booth seat.

Solas takes a sip from his wine glass.

“We met handcuffed in a police car; the officer had gone on lunch. We had little else to do, and so in time found ourselves in a compromising state. The officer, when he returned, was less than pleased. His fault, really, for leaving us alone.”

He says it so calmly, as if he were telling us his drink order, and my mouth falls open. I’m not the only one.

“Well damn, Chuckles,” says Varric, and I am inclined to agree with the sentiment. 

“What did you _do_?” Inquires Josephine, eyes wide.

Solas smiles.

“Dr. Montilyet, a gentleman never kisses and tells.”

“That’s not what I--!”

“Oh, let the poor man have his secrets!” Dorian says. “Although that particular story I’d like to hear again sometime, if you’d like to get together and discuss?”

His eyes are practically _twinkling_.

Josephine hits him lightly on the chest, and he falls melodramatically back in his chair.

“I’m a curious man!”

“The best I’ve got is in the middle of the woods,” I say loudly, trying to pull attention away from Solas. “Camping. I do not recommend.” I take a swig from the bottle in front of me. “Varric?”

“Ah,” Varric makes a show of stroking his chin. “It doesn’t quite make sense if I give you the _where_ but not the _whom_.”

Leliana leans forward.

“And who, pray tell,  _was_ the whom, Varric?”

“Mayor’s daughter,” he says. “In the middle of my dad’s election campaign running against him. Not only were we _caught_ and in a roundabout way ruined my father’s campaign, but her four brothers had something to say about it as well.”

Everyone makes the appropriate sympathetic reactions, and the night trickles on this way, with everyone swapping stories, egged on by Leliana, lovingly tsked at by Cassandra, and eventually trumped by Varric or Dorian with tales that get increasingly taller as they tell them.

Eventually, Josephine hits both hands on the table: the universal symbol for “I’m about to leave.”

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have a 9:30 lecture to give tomorrow on immigration law, so I’m going to have to call it a night.”

“Oh, Josephine, come now, stay! I have to open at _Nightingale_ tomorrow morning at _six_ , and here I am with another full martini curiously in my hand. It’s not even last call.”

“No, no, I really must be off. Dorian as well, since I’ll be driving him home.”

Dorian responds to hearing his name by immediately standing.

“That’s me!”

“Isaak can be a real bull about it if he’s not home on time, and he always seems to take it out on _me_ ,” she says, ignoring Dorian’s outburst.

Josephine collects her coat and Dorian, and they each wave goodbye before making their way toward the exit.

“Well he seems nice.”

“Agreed.”

“Yes, they also have the right idea. I’m afraid I’m throwing in the towel as well.”

“Oh, Cass, but when you go, so does Varric –“

“Sorry, Red, where Eagle Eyes goes…” He trails off and shrugs.

“Well, Leliana. I guess that’s the end of your evening.”

Leliana pouts at me, and normally that would definitely work, but I really _am_ feeling tired. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.

“Leliana, I can’t go out drinking every night. What am I, 18 again?”

“What if I ask Cullen to come out with us? We could always go somewhere else.”

I glare at her.

She relents, and puts her glass down.

“Oh, fine. Just let me go close my tab.”

She heads in the direction of the bar to retrieve her credit card, and Cassandra and Varric snake their way through the crowd to the door, waving back at us when they reach it. So I’m left alone with Solas.

Instead of speaking, I start peeling away at the label on my beer.

“So, a cop car, huh?”

“It was a rebellious time,” he smirks into his glass. He doesn’t add anything else.

I wonder if bow-ties were involved back then.

“Thanks for coming out with us,” I say after a few seconds. “We’ve got a lot of block-solidarity on the High Street. Kind of like a little family. Especially since none of us really have our own families. Well, except Leliana. Although Ana can’t really settle down, so even though they’ve been dating for like, ten years, we hardly ever see her. She um, served in Afghanistan.”

Solas doesn’t say anything, looking down into his glass and kind of swirling it a little so the red of his wine comes up to the edge of his glass and back down again over and over. It makes me a little seasick.

I peel off the last of the paper on the bottle, and hold up the label to him.

“It’s a good typeface, right? I almost only ever get a beer because I like the label. I’m a little shallow that way, I guess.”

He looks like he's about to say something, but his eye catches something behind me.

“Alright my chickadees, let us hit the dusty trail,” Leliana sings, having made her way back to our table. She’s tucking her wallet into her purse, and leaning over to grab her coat from a hook in the corner.

I stand up and shrug my coat back on, and wait for Solas to stand before shuffling out of our booth seat.

The bar is a lot warmer now that I’m up and moving and have a coat on, so the night air is a welcome change.

“Oh, I’m so glad it’s finally getting chilly at night,” Leliana says, and makes a show of breathing out a little cloud of air.

“Thank you so much for the invitation, Leliana,” Solas says, and he inclines his shoulders forward just enough to make me think he’s about to bow. “It was lovely.”

Leliana looks him up and down, and I’m sending her as many telepathic messages as possible to not be mean. God, she has such a mean streak sometimes.

“Well, I’m catching a cab home. Do either of you want to share with me?”

“No, thank you – I prefer to walk,” says Solas.

“Yeah, I was going to walk home, too! Try and walk off the one beer I nursed for the whole evening.”

Leliana’s eyes very briefly meet mine, and I can tell she’s sending me a million messages with the one look: be safe, don’t be an idiot, don’t let him break your heart, for god’s sake you’ve only known him for a week.

Or maybe I’m crazy and that’s just my own internal monologue and it’s not a message from Leliana. Either way, it’s solid advice.

She sighs.

“Alright, well, be safe, you two.”

 Solas nods, and turns around and begins to walk in the direction of the main road. I try not to follow him too quickly.

“Wait, Ellana!”

I freeze, and turn around slowly, cringing at the sidewalk.

“Yes, Leliana?”

“Sorry, but I’m such a ditz, and I forgot that I don’t have my phone on me!”

She mimes hitting herself on the head.

I don’t think she’s sorry at all.

I quickly reach into my back pocket and pull out my phone.

“Here,” I say, unlocking my phone and pulling up the relevant app. “I’ll call one for you.”

The little map comes to life, and with a quick tap of the arrow icon, a little picture of a car starts heading down the little picture of a street towards the little picture of my face.

“Oh, Ellana, it’s like $20 back to my house.”

“It’s on me! Really!”

I look back to see that Solas is waiting for me, and I start walking backwards toward him.

“I owe you a drink, duckling.”

“I’ll say,” I mutter.

“Ready?” Solas says to me when I reach him.  

“Ready,” I say, and we’re off.

It’s nice. It’s quiet, and it’s just becoming truly autumn, and there’s a slight chill in the air, and did I mention that it was _quiet_?

“We’re not like, weird now, right?”

I’m not good at quiet.

“Hmm,” he starts, as though he’s considering it. “Weird how?”

“Because we kissed?”

“How might that make things weird?”

“Like, I can still come to your shop and draw?”

“Ellana, of course you can still come to my shop and draw.”

“Oh, okay. Cool,” I nod.

“I’ll just ask for something in return.”

I stop dead.

“ _What?_ ”

He stops, and turns to face me. He looks as if he thinks I’m insane.

“ _Conversation_ , Ellana. I’d like to talk with you more.”

“Oh. Right. Of course.”

I start walking again.

“For example, you said that you don’t really have a family. Why would you say that?”

I look at him from the corner of my eye.

“This is small talk, Solas?”

“No, this is getting to know you talk.”

“Whatever happened to, ‘What’s your favorite color?’”

“Green, if you must know, although I felt that we had more in common with the former.”

“Mine is orange,” I say, purposefully side-stepping the family question. I _like_ Solas. I’m not about to throw the “My mom is in jail and I was a kid in the system,” wrench into this yet, or god forbid, the box.

“Orange?”

“Yeah, orange. I feel like orange gets a lot of bad press since it’s what’s on traffic cones and stuff, but it reminds me of when I was a kid on the farm and we’d pull up carrots. It was always my favorite part, because it was such an intense color, and it came from the earth. You’d wash away all the dirt, and you’d have this bright, delicious little carrot. Same with yams. Although sometimes they’d be more _red_ on the outside, and you’d have to wait until you cut them open to see the orange. Anyway, it’s one of the reasons I really like fall.”

“Because of yams?”

“Because of the colors. I just think it’s pretty neat that everything can be green one day, and the next thing you know, all these trees are just _erupting_ in color.”

He takes a second to digest this, and shakes his head.

 “You are not what I expected, Ellana.”

I furrow my brow, and I look over at him.

“What, because I farmed yams as a kid? You don’t think a girl like me has a home back at the farm?”

“No, that isn’t it. It’s just… there is a certain subtlety to you, I suppose.”

I take a moment to consider everything I consider to be true about myself.

“Mmm, ‘subtle’ is not a word I would have gone with.”

He chuckles.

“Perhaps not, but I don't think that you are giving yourself enough credit. For instance, you attempted to draw attention away from me back at the bar when you thought the others might ask probing questions about my past. A topic which you no doubt believe to be a sensitive one.”

“I – I didn’t… I mean…”

“It’s alright. I can handle myself.”

He goes on.

“You clearly care for Leliana, the way she attempts to mask her pain with an upbeat demeanor and cheer. Her girlfriend is unwell, but I don’t think you know how to approach that in a way to which she will be receptive. So you give her what she needs: companionship.”

“Solas –“

“And you spurn the advances of your accountant, who I’m sure is the safer option when pitted against myself. Why is that?”

“Solas.”

I stop walking.

He stops too, and looks at me. After a beat, he looks away.

“I’m sorry. That was forward and presumptive of me. I did not mean to say anything that might offend you.”

“Yeah. Well. Cool it, would you?”

“People do not consider me… an easy man to be around.”

I snort.

“Clearly.”

“But I appreciate that you want to. I just would like you to know a bit more of what you are getting in to.”

We’ve reached the High Street, and we’re standing in front of the parlor. Where my bike would be, if I had taken it into town with me.

I gesture to my left.

“Well, I’m this way.”

“And I’m…” Solas looks in the other direction.

We stand there for a few more seconds, and I know there are a lot of things that I want to say, but I don’t quite know what they are. So I don’t say any of them. Instead, I say:

“Hey, do I even have your number?”

I pull out my phone, and gesture to it, as if perhaps Solas does not know what phones are.

“No, I don’t think you would have had cause to.”

He pulls his own phone out of his pocket. An iPhone, sans case. The man lives dangerously.

He tells me his number, and I program it into my phone. I put a couple of leaf emojis after his name because I’m _hilarious_ and send him a text with my name.

“Did you get it?”

He nods, and taps his screen a couple of times before putting his phone back in his pocket.

I briefly consider if he’s the kind of person to put emojis after people’s names.

I look at his well-combed left part, and decide that he is not.

“Will you let me know when you’ve gotten home safely?”

I smile.

“Yeah, of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> about half an hour later, solas gets a text with the house emoji, followed by approx. eight to twelve thumbs-up
> 
> thank you so much for reading and commenting and bookmarking and leaving kudos!! it means a lot and you're all peaches xx


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, just a quick & small update here -- i have a busy few days ahead of me, but wanted to give you a little something in the meantime. xoxo

“Oh, they are done!”

“Wait, nothing even dinged, how do you know they’re done?”

“I have an internal clock for these kinds of things.”

“Other women get a biological clock for babies and you got dessert, huh?”

With a smile, Leliana slides from her perch on the countertop and extracts the muffin tin of cupcakes from the oven with a tea towel, and sets them on the stovetop.

“Can you take the tin next to the microwave and fill it with batter? It should already have sleeves.”

“How full is full?”

“About three-quarters.”

“Got it.”

Leliana’s apartment is just like you think it would be – it’s like it fell out of a Pinterest board. It’s like Martha Stewart’s wet dream. Well, if Martha Stewart had a penchant for taxidermy animals, antique knives, and vaguely haunting old French music that never seemed to stop playing in the background.

I pick up a stray cupcake liner, which has a hand-stamped image of a nightingale on the bottom.

Everything else is Martha approved.

“Are you going to tell me what happened, or do I need to force it out of you?”

“Oh, Leliana…”

She turns to point an unfrosted cupcake threateningly in my direction.

“Okay, sheesh, I get it – what were you a Bond villain in another life?”

I start to spoon cupcake batter into the tin.

“We talked about the kiss, and the whole thing just started to seem silly,” I shrug. “I mean, he panicked, but at least that means he’s feeling _something_ , right? And whatever that something is, it’s intense. Like, _really_ intense. I don’t know what it is, but when I’m around him everything else just feels so much… I don’t know. Quieter. Smaller, maybe. A little overwhelming, but still manageable.”

I lick the heel of my palm where some batter has managed to land, and look over to see Leliana staring at me.

“ _What_?”

She shakes her head.

“Nothing. You are starting to wax lyrical, and I just want you to be safe. That’s all.”

“I _am_ being safe. Don’t be such a mama hen about it.”

“And what about Cullen?

“What _about_ Cullen?”

“He seems like he might be interested in you, and maybe..." she sighs. "He’s a nice guy. He’s been through a lot.”

“Leliana, everyone’s been through a lot. Just because someone managed to not let the world break them doesn’t mean they’re special,” I say, scraping out the last bit of batter. “I swear, our block is a magnet for troubled teens, but like, grown up troubled teens.”

I hold up my tray.

“Okay, these are all ready to go.”

She gestures to the oven, and her phone rings at the same time.

“Oh, Josephine! I told her to come over too, if that’s alright?”

“Of course.”

Leliana heads into the hallway to chat on the phone with Josephine, and I’m left with Edith Piaf in the kitchen. I don’t know French, but I do hum along.

There’s an old bricked up fireplace against the wall, and there are a bunch of framed photos on the mantle. Leliana and Ana, mostly. In India, on the Great Wall of China, at the Loch Ness. Leliana told me they’d loved traveling. Each photo is matted alongside a plane ticket. Martha would have a field day.

One is a group shot from her early twenties – her, Ana, Alistair (He’s the _mayor_ now. Who’d have thought?), and a few more people I don’t recognize. Next to that there’s a candid from when she’d just graduated from college; she’s huddled together with Josephine, diploma in hand and rosy cheeked. Upon closer inspection, I notice the beads of a rosary curled up and tucked under the frame.

“She’ll be here in about ten minutes.”

I almost jump out of my skin.

“Jesus Leliana, how do you _do_ that?”

“Admiring my nostalgia wall?”

“Mmm," I nod. "I didn’t know that Ana and Cullen knew each other."

I point to an especially worn looking photo held up with decorative tape, and Leliana laughs.

“Oh, yes, _years_ ago. When they were in high school, although they both claim they barely remember each other. It’s purely happenstance that now we live in the same town and he works next door. I suppose I keep it around as a reminder.”

“A reminder of what?”

“That the choices we make matter.”

She smiles a tight-lipped smile.

“Are you ready to frost and decorate? I for one am _dying_ to teach you how to make a fondant rose.”

I think about what Solas said about Leliana, about how she’s sad but that I don’t know how to deal with it.

“Alright _maestro_. Teach me your ways.”

But I think I do.

In my own way.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a lot of feelings about leliana. i especially love [this drawing of her](http://41.media.tumblr.com/5dbdd1374da9ad1a351c8dffb4fd5dc2/tumblr_nhmnknUnll1tky9b8o1_500.png) by romans-art on tumblr, and i feel like in a roundabout way it inspired some part of my portrayal. 
> 
> anyway. thank you so much for reading, and the next chapter will be up soon! things are about to take off in a major way in the next few chapters i hope we are all Excited
> 
> (as a side note, "grown up troubled teens" might as well be the subtitle for this whole fic)


	10. Chapter 10

Today I’m spending a lot of time looking at Solas’ hands.

Look, I know I should be drawing – Cassandra said she wanted to look at my sketchbook by Friday and I need some good shit to show her – but I can’t help it.

It’s the first morning back to our normal (normal?) routine since the museum; since we had kissed. Solas had said Sunday night he wanted to talk more, to try and get to know each other, but he hasn’t said anything yet. And I’m not making any more first moves insofar as he’s concerned.

So we’ve been sitting in silence, me at the table at the back of the shop, him repotting a bunch of herbs from plastic containers to ceramic ones. For almost 45 minutes.

The radio is playing (classical, of course) but it’s almost drowned out by the sound of the dehumidifier humming behind the register. And there _is_ a bouquet of daisies in front of me which should be getting drawn, but instead the daisies are getting completely ignored in favor of chewing on the cap of my pen and staring at Solas’ hands.

The man has nice hands.

He has long fingers; thin and graceful and steady. One after the other he reaches into the wet dirt of a plastic planter, easing out sprigs of mint and clumps of dirt, massaging the roots outwards. His hands are the kind of hands that must have been well suited for playing piano or climbing trees – things that require reach.

He’s not wearing gloves, even though when I saw him repotting those cactuses the other day he _was_ wearing gloves.

 _Is there some kind of glove-code?_ I wonder. Maybe it has something to do with the delicacy of the plants. Gloves might get in the way, bruise the plants.

When he kissed me in the museum – the way he grabbed at me, pulling me into him, wrapping his fingers in fistfuls of hair to angle my head the way he wanted – I find it difficult to reconcile those hands with the ones now gently organizing mint leaves in a small blue pot.

I try to imagine (I can’t even remotely reconstruct his touch in my head) the way he might touch me that way. Softly. Curiously. The warmth of his palms, his calloused fingers, his breath on the back of my neck making my hair stand on end.

It’s an interesting thought.

 “Are you alright?”

“Hmm-- what?”

I almost bite my pen cap in two.

“You seem more contemplative than usual. I didn’t want to interrupt, but it had reached the point where I feared you might be having a seizure instead.”

“Oh. Oh, nope. Not me. I’ve never had a seizure. This girl I knew growing up had epilepsy though, and when we were like, fifteen we went to go see the movie _Godzilla_ and they didn’t warn us there’d be flashing lights…so….”

Solas is smiling, picking at the dirt beneath his fingernails.

“This story sounded better in my head.”

“I’m going to suppose that your friend’s epileptic seizure from over a decade ago isn’t what’s eating at you.”

_I wish you were eating at me._

_fUCK_

“What?! No.”

I laugh a little too loudly and almost fall out of my chair. I tuck my hair behind my ears and swallow.

_Hands at hips, head between your thighs, wet --_

“It’d definitely not that!” My voice cracks. “It’s my portfolio. And this tattoo I have next week. Well, next week and a half.”

I congratulate my brain for pulling that one out. And it’s not technically a lie. I have been thinking about it quite a lot – ruminating, even.

“I feel like I pulled a fast one over on Varric, and I hate feeling that way.”

“What about it exactly has you worried?”

He goes back to repotting. Now it’s rosemary.

Damn him.

“I’m not good with color,” I say. “And Varric says that if I really don’t think I can do it that he’ll do it, but to be honest I don’t think he’d even be all that comfortable with it. I don’t know what got into my head to make me say watercolor.”

Solas’ hands freeze (I know because I’m still watching them).

“Watercolors?”

“Yeah, they’re tough to get right because you need a really good reference – ink won’t bleed on skin the way it does on paper. I was watching YouTube videos of people doing them all morning.”

“Would it help you to work with some actual paints?”

“Mmm, I guess so – why?”

Brushing the dirt off of his hands on his smock, he breezes right past me and into the back room. I stare after him, watching the door, as if I’m going to get x-ray vision any moment and I’ll be able to see what he’s doing. There’s a rustling noise, the sound of clay pots hitting together.

“Are you alright back there?”

“Perfectly fine,” he calls back.

He reemerges a few seconds later with a plastic box about the size of my forearm and a tied up roll of canvas.

“These, ah,” he looks down at them, not at me. “These were mine.”

He holds them out toward me, and I take them. His fingers are covered in dirt, and it leaves marks on the box.

“Solas, I can’t take your –“

“Consider it borrowing, then. I’m afraid I don’t have any paper, so that you’ll have to get on your own.”

“Thanks,” I say, and I set the items down on the table.

“Right,” he nods, and heads back to the herbs.

I thumb the edges of the clasp on the box. It has a few scratches here and there, and the color has yellowed a bit, but it’s in fine condition.

“How old –“ I start, but the bell rings above the door to the shop, and Solas is swept away by an elderly gentleman looking for roses.

I open the box.

It’s all I have to do and it’s immediately clear that this set of paints was well-loved. Each pigment has a quarter to half-inch crater from use, the reverse of the lid is covered in paint from acting as a makeshift palette, and the small tubes of gouache look like tubes of nearly-empty toothpaste.

I untie the canvas roll to find a dozen brushes of varying sizes, a few with strips of fabric rolled around them to help ease aching fingers when doing significant detail work. The writing on the side of each rush has been worn off for the most part, and so I have to guess that they’re sable-hair. The bristles are still soft. He must have cleaned them well and regularly.

It’s the set of a professional.

I grab my coffee cup from the table, and duck into the bathroom to dump it and rinse it out. The mirror still has the sticker that reads, “ _los empleados deben lavarse las manos,_ ” which kind of kicks up an instinctual need for a quarter chicken c _on_ _arroz y frijoles_.

When I head back into the main area of the shop, Solas is ringing up the old man for a delivery order, hand writing him a receipt on a carbon copy notepad.

I sit back down to the daisies, and dip one of the brushes into the water.

“Have a pleasant afternoon,” Solas says, and the bell above the door signals the old man’s departure.

I wiggle my wet brush around in the yellow paint. Solas hole punches his receipt, and folds it into the ledger.

“Solas, why did you stop painting?”

He closes the ledger and folds his hands on top of it, leaning his weight onto the desk.

 “It stopped feeling important.”

 I don’t ask him any more questions for the rest of the afternoon.

-

“Good of you to drop by, Beansprout.”

“I work here, Varric.”

“And it can still be nice to see you.”

I roll my eyes.

“Thanks _dad_ ,” I say, tossing my backpack onto the chair behind the front counter. The box of watercolors I set down more gently. “Anything to report?”

Varric leans back in his chair, and reaches his arm out to stretch his wrist and fingers.

“Hmm, Josephine stopped by to invite us over for dinner on Friday night, and I think Cassandra needs you to take her car to the shop tomorrow morning. Go check with her.”

“Ugggh, why can’t she do it?” I sigh.

“Because she has a business to run that keeps her schedule pretty full, and she refuses to drive it any more than 25 miles under her next mileage checkup.”

I pull a face.

“Just do her a solid, would you?”

I drag my feet back to Cassandra’s office, where she’s sitting and chatting with Cullen. Honestly, I’m not even surprised anymore.

“Varric said you want me to take your car into the shop tomorrow morning?” I ask, leaning against the doorframe. “Hi Cullen.”

He nods to me.

“Yes, Ellana, thank you for reminding me. Here, take my keys now so I don’t forget to give them to you later.”

She pulls open the drawer with her bag in it, and roots around for her keys.

“Are you going to come to Josephine’s dinner on Friday?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Oh, it’s nice that you’re going,” Cullen says, turning to look at me.

“Yeah, Josephine is a damn fine cook. She makes a mean _paella_. It’ll insult your clothing _and_ your life choices.”

He laughs, which is sweet of him, because it definitely wasn’t a funny joke.

“Here you go.”

Cassandra holds out her keys to me, and I lean over to get them. I can’t quite reach because I refuse to actually enter the room and stand without the support of the doorframe, so Cullen grabs them and hands them to me.

“Thanks,” I say, but I don’t look at him. “Anyway, I don’t have anything scheduled for the rest of the day, so I’m just going to head next door and see if Leliana has any leftover cupcakes.”

“Tch, Ellana, don’t forget about –“

“Portfolio. Friday. It’s a date.”

“And—“

“I’ve been on those practice skins like moths to a flame and it’s been equally as brutal. I promise.”

I back away from her office, and make what I assume to be the Girl Scout salute, but it could also be the one from the Hunger Games.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, and I’ll bring your car back in one piece.”

I wave goodbye to Varric, and I’m barely five feet out the door of the shop when Cullen catches it and follows me outside.

“Hey, Ellana, wait -- you’re going to Josephine’s dinner, right?”

“Yeah, we – we just went over this, Cullen.”

“Right.”

“Are you… going, too?”

“Yeah, I – yes. I just wanted to know if you needed a ride.”

“Oh.”

“Just if you need one.”

“Got you.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Need one.”

“Oh, um, I might?”

I shift the strap on my backpack.

“Great, just let me know if you want me to pick you up. It’s only -- I figured you wouldn’t want to bike all that way.”

“Right, no, probably not. It would get. Sweaty.”

 _What_.

He nods.

“Okay, well, I’ll see you later then. Just… text me and let me know.”

He waves and heads back into the parlor.

I blink and shake my head a few times before heading into Leliana’s, and I can’t help but notice the slightly sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach like I’ve done something wrong.

 -

It’s around 8:00, and I’m shoving my bike into the back of Cassandra’s car when I get the text message from Solas. I figured that it was going to be Cassandra making sure that I remembered to take her car, so when I see that it’s his name on the screen, I nearly drop my phone.

\--{ Are you doing anything right now?

He starts to type something else, but the little dots stop moving. _Torture_.

                                                              no, why? }—

He takes his time responding – it feels like he’s typing for a while. But when I get the next text from him it just says:

\--{ Do you have a car?

I look at Cassandra’s ’95 Ford Explorer, and then back down at my phone.  

                                                                     um… }—

                                                                   kind of }—

The next text he sends comes almost right away.

\--{ Meet me at my house in half an hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!! what happens!!!! (i know what happens!!!!)
> 
> thank you all so much for reading xx


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a quick note that this chapter is a drastic change in tone (this is solas we're talking about). cw blood, etc.

Solas texts me the address to his house, and at first I can’t believe he lives so far away. I thought he’d be about a mile and some change away like I am, but where he’s living it’s almost a two hour walk into town if he hoofs it.

The whole drive over I feel a little lightheaded and dizzy. I try to blame it on the fact that I haven’t eaten dinner yet, but it’s more likely nerves.

 _His house? Why does he want to meet me_ there _?_

A few half-thoughts and reasons race through my mind, but I can’t commit to one idea. Up until this point, Solas had never struck me as the kind of person to impulsively invite someone to their home.

I sit at the stop sign before the last turn onto his street a little longer than I need to, listening to my turning signal click away like a metronome.

It’s kind of calming.

I take a breath and turn onto his street.

There’s only one house on this stretch of road; a small restored New England farmhouse, painted white. Well, from what I can tell in the fading light, it _was_ painted white a few years ago. It’s fallen into charming disrepair.

There’s a first floor light on, and to the right of the house is a greenhouse about half as large as the house itself.

“This must be the right place then,” I say to myself, pull up and turn off the ignition. “Right.”

I nod to myself, and push open the door.

There is a stone path up to the front door, but weeds are beginning to overtake it and the stones are cracked. If the sun had already gone down, I’m pretty sure it would have been a serious hazard.

When I climb the steps to the front door, I think I see something move in a window. My guess is its Solas, having heard the car pull up. I knock with the knocker regardless, and after a few moments the door opens.

Solas stands in the foyer holding the door open, and I can feel myself pulling a face when I notice he’s forsaken his sweater/button-down/bow-tie combo in favor of a plain t-shirt and jeans. No loafers, this time as well. What, are those  _Keds_?

“Ellana, thank you so much for coming. Let me just grab my coat,” he says, turning to open a closet door.

I try to crane my head to get a good look of the inside of his house, but all I can catch are a few framed prints on the walls, and that the door to the kitchen is open. I think I see a copper kettle sitting on the stove.

“Yeah, yeah, no problem Solas – but, ah, _where_ exactly is it that we’re going? I have to get the car –“

“How comfortable are you on the freeway at night?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Solas reemerges from the closet with a worn leather jacket that he shrugs on.

“I need to head into the city.”

“Wait, what?”

“It should only be two hours or so if we take the freeway, but if you’re uncomfortable driving at night, there are a few workarounds that might add about an hour to the journey.”

He grabs a messenger bag from the closet, and begins to shove a few things into it: maps, paperwork, a bottle of water.

“Okay, first off, yes I’m fine driving at night, but can you tell me why you need –“

“A friend. A friend of mine reached out who needs my help, and I need to see her. I’m sorry, I hate to inconvenience you like this, but it’s a matter of urgency.”

He throws the bag on over his shoulder, and grabs a phone and his keys from the side table by the door, putting them into his coat pocket.

The phone is the small plastic kind – the kind you might buy at the checkout lane of a supermarket that advertises no contracts.

“What happened to your phone?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your phone, you have an iPhone. What’s that?”

I gesture to his pocket.

“Oh. This is – this is the best way to reach her.”

“On a burner phone?”

“Please, can we?”

He gestures behind me, and I turn around to walk back to my car. I hear him lock the door behind us.

“There car isn’t mine. It’s Cassandra’s,” I say, not turning around.

“Hmm?”

Solas comes down the porch steps and heads over to where I’m standing. I hear the rustling of grass, a garden worryingly overgrown for a florist.

“The car. I’m borrowing it from Cassandra, literally just for the day. Not even 24 hours. I have to get it to the shop before work tomorrow morning. Solas, please. Just tell me that we’re going to get this car back in one piece for her.”

“We’ll be in and out. I promise.”

I shake my head and unlock the car.

_What are you doing? Driving two hours into the city to help the friend of a man you hardly know?_

“Why don’t you have a car?” I ask, climbing into the driver’s seat. “Seems kind of impractical if you have to haul a bunch of plants back and forth, and if you do deliveries.”

Solas walks around the car to the passenger side door, and climbs in.

“I technically have a van, but Harding drives it. She does deliveries, pick-ups, that kind of thing.”

“And you couldn’t call her about this?” I ask, turning the ignition.

“It isn’t the sort of thing I would entrust her with.”

“Oh.”

_But the kind of thing you’d trust me with._

I pull out onto the road, in the direction of the highway.

“Um, so your… friend. Is she okay? Or…”

“I don’t know. The message wasn’t entirely clear.”

“Oh.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him look over at me.

“We weren’t lovers, Ellana.”

“Oh, that’s not… That doesn’t matter.”

“But if it did, you’d have your answer.”

I nod a couple of times, looking out at the road.

Solas leans over and turns on the radio, tuning in to the classical station.

“Do you mind?”

“No. Not at all.”

So we drive.

-

A little over an hour later and we haven’t said much. Solas is staring out the window, the yellow of the streetlights reflecting off the pavement to illuminate his face from below.

The roads are practically empty, unsurprising for ten o’clock at night on a Tuesday. The rhythm of driving, the late hour, the classical station – everything combined and I’m starting to drift off a little.

“Solas, can you talk to me?”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s just that I’m starting to get a little sleepy. I’d hate for the evening to end in a trip to the emergency room and crashing Cassandra’s car.”

“Oh. Right.”

He shifts in his seat.

“What would you like to talk about?”

“I don’t know. Anything. You’re the one who said we ought to get to know each other.”

He laughs.

“I suppose I did, didn’t I?”

“So what do you want to know?”

He runs his fingers through his hair, mussing it up a bit undoes that left part he keeps so religiously.

“Tell me about your family,” he says.

I bark out a laugh.

 _What’s the harm? You’re together on a road trip to rescue a mysterious friend from mysterious danger_.

“Well, for starters, my mom is in jail.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” I nod. “Possession with intent, assault and battery, resisting arrest. A fun cocktail of a rap sheet. So that’s my Big Story.”

“Your big story?”

“Yeah. You know, the One Defining Moment in someone’s life they choose to blame all their problems on?” I turn to look at him. “Everyone’s got one.”

“Oh, do they?” Solas grins, big and toothy.

“Yeah, they do,” I say. “So what’s yours?”

“I don’t know if I have one,” he says. “I’ve led a pretty quiet life.”

“Yeah, okay,” I snort. “Mister ‘I Had Sex In The Back Of A Cop Car’.”

“Oh, but that doesn’t _define_ me.”

“Yeah, but it’s a pretty solid indication of more delinquent activity.”

“I admit to a few poor decisions, but everyone was young once.”

“Okay, I never had _sex in the back of a police car_.”

Solas laughs and puts his feet onto the dashboard, curling his knees into his chest.

“Tell me about the farm,” he says, looking up at me.

“What, we’re not going to dwell on the mother in prison?”

He shakes his head.

“I don’t think that defined you,” he says. “Your favorite color is orange because it reminds you of pulling up carrots in early autumn. Anyone holding onto a memory like that isn’t defined by something so simple as a relative in prison.”

I bite my lip to try and hide the smile.

“So tell me about the farm,” he says.

“Well,” I begin. “The Lavellans are my foster parents. They run what’s kind of like, a communal living situation. They have this huge property up north, so there were always a bunch of kids running around, dogs -- a few horses, even – and you never felt like you were alone. Which was good when you were feeling kind of lonely, but ugh, no privacy.”

I look over to make sure Solas is still listening to me, and he nods for me to continue.

“I mean, they had their own kids, but they’d already grown up, and I guess they missed having a full house, so they opened it up to foster kids. People were constantly in and out – a lot of kids who had aged out of the system, but who still came back to stay. It was nice. Everyone pulled their own weight. Everyone had their own responsibilities, something that needed to get done for the good of the family, and I really appreciate that now. People were counting on you.”

Solas nods.

“So why don’t you think you have your own family? You prefer your family on High Street?”

I bite my lip.

“No, no it’s not that. I mean, I guess I do, but we… we kind of had a falling out.”

“Oh?”

“They wanted me to go to college. Study art,” I shrug. “But it didn’t really stick. I couldn’t pay for it, and after I aged out I wouldn’t let them pay for me, so I just kind of bummed around for a while. That’s when I found Cassandra. She offered me the apprenticeship, free of charge.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“I just need to feel like I’m working for the good of something else, I guess. Something bigger.”

“And going back to college wouldn’t be working toward a greater good?”

“I know it sounds weird. I guess it just seemed kind of selfish.”

“No, no. I think we have a lot in common, actually.”

“Oh?” I feel my eyebrows practically shoot up to my hairline. “Enlighten me then.”

“I think this is our exit,” he says, uncurling his legs and sitting up in his seat.

“Oh. Really?”

It seemed to come sooner than I’d have thought.

Solas reaches for the bag at his feet, and pulls out a small map.

“Yes,” he nods. “Take this exit.”

I flip my turn signal, and merge onto the exit. The road curves around and spits us out onto a small city street with apartment complexes on either side. The area seems a little seedy, but it’s probably just that it’s dark and unfamiliar.

“Does this look right to you?”

“I can’t be certain,” he says. “Sophie just messaged me the longitude and latitude.”

“Oh. Of course.”

Solas is bent over his map, which he’s drawn a route onto with a permanent marker.

“Here, turn here.”

I pull into a parking lot next to an apartment complex. The lot is surrounded by a chain link fence, and there are only a handful of other cars parked here. Solas doesn’t even hesitate jumping out of the car as soon as I turn off the ignition, but I’m a bit more hesitant. So much about this feels off.

Solas turns back to me, and he smiles. It's not a "hurry up we're late," smile, either. It's more like a, "I'm glad you're here," smile.

_I guess I’ve already come this far._

I get out of the car and lock the door.

“Is this the place?”

“It would appear to be.”

He presses an unlabeled button next to the door which buzzes, and a metallic click lets us know that the door is unlocked. Solas pulls the door open, and heads up the stairwell.

The smell of stale curry and weed permeates the walls of the place, and there’s the sound of a baby crying on a much higher floor. We climb three flights of stairs before Solas heads down a hallway, stopping at a door toward the very end.

“Ellana,” he says before knocking. “I don’t think I can properly convey my gratitude.”

“Then don’t,” I say, and look pointedly at the door.

He knocks, but the door is unlocked and ajar, opening just from the weight of his hand. He pushes it the rest of the way open and heads inside.

The apartment is bigger than mine, but poorly maintained. There are no lights on – just a muted t.v. playing _Jeopardy_ against the far wall casting a harsh blue over the room.

“Hello?” Solas calls, taking off his bag and setting it on the floor by the door. “Sophie?”

There’s a noise from behind an open door to the kitchen, and two people enter the room, wide eyed. A woman with short cropped black hair and a large man with a patchy beard stand in the doorframe. They both look utterly wrecked – circles under their eyes, track marks up their arms, sweat stains and blood marking up their shirts.

The man carries a bowl of water with a washcloth in it and a first aid kit.

“Who are you?” Solas and the man begin to say at the same time, but a voice from the direction of the sofa in the middle of the room leaves the question both unasked and unanswered.

“You came.”

The voice – undeniably a woman’s and probably Sophie’s – is quiet. No more than a whisper.

Solas darts around the sofa and I follow him to find a woman lying beneath a bundle of blankets, her head propped up with a pillow. Her face shines with sweat, and even in the low light I can tell that she’s sickly pale.

“Hey! You can’t –“

“Oh Alan,” Sophie wheezes, waving a hand. “He’s an old friend.”

The man, Alan, and the woman next to him exchange nervous glances as Solas kneels down at the sofa, and takes one of Sophie’s hands in his own. I pull back against the wall, trying to minimize the amount of space I’m taking up.

“Sophia, what’s happened?”

She doesn’t say anything. Instead, she gestures to her torso and laughs. Weakly. Whatever is wrong with her, she’s clearly in pain.

Solas slowly lifts one of the blankets, and I crane my neck to see what it is he’s seeing.

“Oh god,” I say. “Is that –“

I don’t get to “ _blood_ ,” because it is abundantly clear from the flowering patch of red on her shirt, the soaked blanket on top of her, and the inches of rags pressed to her side that yes, that’s blood, and a lot of it.

She’s dying.

Solas stands quietly, and calmly crosses over to the television pressing the volume button up until the bass of Alex Trebek’s Canadian accent shakes the windows.

I can tell that Sophie is trying to say something to him, but can’t hear her over some contestant saying, “ _What is My American Cousin, Alex?_ ” and Solas stalks over to where the two are still standing. He grabs Alan, who is still holding the bowl of water, by the collar and shoves him into the wall, sending the bowl crashing to the ground spilling water all over the floor. He holds him there with his forearm pressing into his neck, the man’s eyes bulging as Solas says something to him I can’t make out.

I rush over to grab the remote for the television off of a side table next to Sophie’s head and I turn off the television.

“Solas, stop!”

The woman reaches over to try and pull Solas away from her friend, but Solas’ elbow collides with her face before she can do any damage, and she rushes into the kitchen, doubled over, to tend to her broken nose.

“ _What did you do?_ ” Solas spits each word staccato into Alan’s face, and he wheezes and coughs.

“My friend, please,” Sophie says, and after a second, Solas releases him.

I take the opportunity of a lull in action to scramble over to the bowl and washcloth, picking up both and bring them back to where Sophie is lying. There’s enough water left in the bowl to dampen the washcloth, and I press the cool rag to Sophie’s face. She looks at me and smiles. Her eyes are large and brown. She looks kind.

“She doesn’t do this work anymore. She’s retired,” I hear Solas say.

I smile back at Sophie, and check her torso.

“Solas,” I say. “She needs to get to a hospital.”

“No, no hospitals,” Sophie says. “No point.”

I look at her.

“You need medical attention.”

“Anyway, police are at hospitals,” she says. “Can’t.”

“Solas,” I look up at him standing behind the sofa, and he starts to walk toward me.

“She had an old contact,” Alan says, rubbing his neck. “We needed her. We didn’t know there was going to be trouble.”

Solas spins around on the heel of his foot, and advances on the man, pointing a finger in his face.

“No. _You_ did this. You got her hurt, this is _your fault_. So you’re going to go back into the kitchen and take care of your friend’s broken nose, and I don’t want to see your face again. _Ever_. Do you understand?”

“We didn’t know, honest –“

Solas punches him. Square in the jaw, and Solas hardly flinches.

With his hands at his face, Alan slinks away. Then it’s just me, Solas, and Sophie.

“Solas,” I say again. “She’s going to die.”

I’ve never seen a dead body before.

It’s callous, but it’s all I can think about.

I’ve never seen a dead body before, and this woman is going to die, and this will always be the first time I saw a dead body.

Solas turns around and closes his eyes. He breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, and I watch everything fade away. His shoulders relax, his jaw releases, the red of his cheeks cools.

“Solas?”

He walks over and joins me on the floor next to the sofa, taking one of Sophie’s hands in his own. The skin on his knuckles is red and raw.

“Hello my love,” he whispers to her.

“My friend,” she smiles back to him. “Don’t be upset. I'm the one who... I had a purpose again.”

Solas frowns.

“Ellana,” he says to me, but won’t look away from her. “On top of the bookcase is a small leather bag. Can you grab it?”

Nodding, I pull away from them and stand up to walk over to the bookcase next to the television. Solas and Sophie continue to talk to each other, and I see Solas put a hand to her face.

The bag is small and light, with a zipper running around the outside. I open it an inch or so to see a small glass bottle, a hypodermic needle, a lighter. I close the bag. I decide that I don’t want to know.

I walk back to the sofa, and hand Solas the bag.

“Ellana, I want you to head back to town.”

“What?”

He busies himself with opening up the bag, pulling out equipment.

“I need…” He takes a deep breath. “I need to take care of a few things. Please. I’ll meet you back in town.”

I look down at him, at Sophie, to the door of the kitchen.

“Are you going to be okay?”

He doesn’t answer.

“How will you get home?”

“Ellana, please.”

I clench my jaw, I bite my tongue.

I don’t say anything back to him.

I pull my jacket tighter around myself, and I walk out of the apartment, out of the building, back to Cassandra’s car, and I drive home in a blur.

The radio is still on the classical station.

I’m in bed before one o’clock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi so a few things  
> 1) thanks for waiting for this chapter. 
> 
> 2) i debated about posting, and almost didn't post this chapter in favor of something else because it is so much heavier than most everything that came before (i'm still really nervous about posting it!!!!). however, i think that the death of wisdom is so crucial and important to solas -- a real turning point in his development, esp. when pursuing a relationship with lavellan. we'll get back to regularly scheduled Fun Times soon, but this sequence of events is important to me. 
> 
> 3) thank you so much for reading. i really wouldn't be able to write this without your support. xx


	12. Chapter 12

My alarm wakes me up on time, and I’m treated to a few glorious seconds where I don’t remember what happened last night. The sore muscles and dried blood under my fingernails, however, are quick to remind me. Then it all begins to sink in, and I curl my legs up to my chest and pull the covers over my head.

It’s a tried-and-true way to deal with most problems, and besides -- the grey and overcast view I caught from the window next to my bed wasn’t exactly a solid motivator for action.

I still check my phone, though.

There’s nothing from Solas.

I debate sending him a text, but decide against it. I think it’s because I want to give him space, but there’s a nagging part of my brain that tells me it’s because I’m afraid.

Maybe I am afraid a little. But I can’t quite figure out if I’m afraid of hearing that something terrible has happened to him or if I’m afraid _of_ him. Or if not _of_ him, then of what he carries with him.

Regardless, it doesn’t change the fact that I care if Solas ever got home safe, that I don’t know what happened to Sophie, or who those people were, or how they knew Solas. I don’t know _anything_.

My phone _does_ inform me, however, that Leliana has uploaded a bunch of pictures from her Homecoming party to Facebook, and I have been tagged in a few of them.

It’s strange to think that while I was watching a woman bleed out on a ratty couch in the east side of the city, Leliana was sitting at home uploading and tagging pictures on Facebook.

The world is weird like that.

It also serves as a reminder that I can’t just lie in bed for the morning and ignore the rest of the world solely because something totally insane happened to me. I still have to take Cassandra’s car to the dealership, head into work, and – I peek out from the covers to assess the pile of bloodstained clothes on the floor next to my desk – I definitely need to do laundry.

I recognize that this almost mechanical reminder of responsibility is likely a side effect of shock, but that’s literally going to have to be a problem for later.

I sit up and I groan, my shoulders tense and tight from driving for so long the night before, and I start getting ready for the day.

Pants, coffee, food. Not necessarily in that order.

I stumble into a pair of harem pants (can I just say how into the new trend of wearing pajamas as real pants I am? commitment level: zero) and head over to the kitchen.

Solas’ watercolor set is still sitting on my desk, and I can almost feel the extra weight of it in the room as I walk past. It gives me that unnerving feeling you get when you see a portrait with eyes that follow you.

I try and ignore it and fill the kettle. The white noise from the tap helps a little.

It’s just that I thought I was figuring him out, that things were beginning to settle. We had even had a normal conversation – which I suppose shouldn’t feel like a victory, but it does. Up until that point it had felt like being with Solas was a lot like not being with Solas -- his mind elsewhere while his body completed tasks as if by rote. And then as soon as we have some semblance of a connection that isn’t impeded by my brain’s apparent self-destruct directive or Solas’ inability to stay on a single subject for more than five minutes it all came crumbling down.

I suppose now I know where his head was all that time. Or at least, I have an inkling. And it doesn’t sit right with me.

While it’s true that I have a history of being drawn to men who keep themselves distant (the _stories_ I have from high school), Solas felt different – as if maybe his is a reluctant distance, but he’s trying to bridge the gap.

I peel a bit of dead skin from my bottom lip with my teeth, and look back at the watercolor set sitting on my desk. 

I hear the sound of rushing water from the kettle, and the soft click that my water has boiled. I spoon a few teaspoons of coffee grounds into my French press, and my phone buzzes on the countertop.

My heart jumps into my throat, but it’s only Varric letting me know that he has a portrait tattoo later. I feel foolish for hoping.

Portrait tattoos are important to Varric, because he keeps a running tally of the better-halves’ faces he’s tattooed only for clients to come back to him years (sometimes months) later and ask for a cover-up because they broke up or got divorced.

It’s the kind of special thing we share. 

                                           yeah man ofc i’ll be there }—

                       i just have to go to the dealership first }—

                                          pray to god it doesn’t rain }—

I push down on the plunger of the press, watching water turn into coffee.

Life resumes.

-

Bodhan leans against the countertop staring down into his clipboard and tuts. I can hear his disapproval over the sounds of carjacks and loud noises. I don’t know enough about cars to tell you what’s going on, but whatever it is, it’s loud.   

“You know, when a car is over 100,000 miles, you really shouldn’t go over the recommended mileage before bringing the car in.”

“Yeah, I – I know, I’m sorry…”

“I’m just surprised, normally Ms. Pentaghast is so on top of it… she’s been coming to our shop for _years_ and we always kind of have a little joke around here about how she always follows our instructions to a T.”

“Yeah, Bodhan, I’m sorry, really – can we… can we just not make a big deal about it? I saw in a movie once that you can just, pop open the odometer and wind it back, can’t you just do that? Or like, run it in reverse? I know it didn’t work in _Ferris Bueller’s Day Off_ , but like, maybe, I mean, this car is from _1995_ and it’s a _Ford Explorer…_ ”

But Bodhan keeps shaking his head, making exasperated noises about how it’s just impossible, it’s illegal, and I just really hate this tiny man and his stupid navy blue jumpsuit with his name embroidered over his chest – but then. _But then_.

I make eye contact with Bodhan’s son behind the counter. I’ve never really had many interactions with Sandal because he’d always seemed kind of simple to me -- a mechanic savant, or what have you -- but I instantly regret any negative thought I have ever had about Sandal in that very moment as he looks at me and ever so slightly nods.

I know in that instant Cass never needs to know about my disastrous joy ride.

“You know what, Bodhan? Forget about it. You’re right. I’m just going to have to face the metaphorical music, as it were. If you could just give me a second to snag my bike out of the trunk, that would be _great_ , and then I’ll just be on my way.”

“You’re going to bike home in that?”

He points to the window behind me, and I turn around to see that the grey skies were indeed an omen of things to come.

It’s _tipping_ with rain down.

_Just one foot in front of the other, Ellana._

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

-

“You know you could have just called me.”

“Yeah, but then I wouldn’t be sitting half-naked on the dryer in your back room.”

Leliana tilts her head as she considers, folding linens all the while.

“True. I don’t suppose your sketchbook made it out alive?”

I hold up the small black book, wrapped in a plastic bag I got off of Bodhan.

“He made me buy something, though.”

“What did you get?”

I throw a small air freshener at Leliana’s head, but she dodges it easily.

“Ugh,” she sniffs the air, “what is that supposed to be?”

“New car,” I shrug.

“New car and fresh _corpse_.”

I laugh, and she smiles.

“Do you want to borrow a sweatshirt? As much as I enjoy the view, I can’t help but think you must be terribly cold.”

I look down at myself, my skin damp, gooseflesh prickling up my thighs.

“Yeah, okay.”

Leliana heads back out to the floor, and is back a few seconds later with a purple sweatshirt, which I take greedily. I hold it up to my nose. It smells like vanilla and coffee.

“It seems as if our resident florist hasn’t made it to his shop again this morning.”

Leliana resumes folding napkins and towels, cool and casual.

“So, I’ve been thinking of getting a cat!”

She glares at me.

“Oh, Leliana, I didn’t take you for a dog person.”

“If you don’t wish to talk about it, that is your prerogative. However,” she sings, “the last time you ran off with the florist and he did not show up for work, it was because you blew his mind with your lip-locking prowess. Excuse me for being so intrigued.”

“Yeah, that…” I pull my hands up into the sleeve of Leliana’s sweatshirt to give me sweater paws. “That didn’t happen this time.”

She makes a noise and shrugs, having folded her last napkin.

“If you say so.”

She picks up the basket of freshly washed linens, holding it against her hip, and takes it back out to the floor.

As soon as she leaves, I lean my head back against the wall and stare up at the ceiling. The dryer hums beneath me, warming my legs.

_You checked your phone not even ten minutes ago. You have it on the loudest the ringer will go. If he texted or called, you would know by now._

I check anyway.

-

“Absolutely glorious,” Varric sighs when his client leaves. “Did you see that? I know you were here, but did you actually _see_ what just happened?”

“Yeah,” I breathe.

It _had_ been glorious, too. The man had asked for a classic pin-up tattoo on his right bicep with his boyfriend’s face on it, and the reference he had provided was positively _scandalous_.

No wonder Varric had accepted – he’d be using that one as prime story material for _years_.

Not that I was entirely present for the actual tattooing. I kept checking my phone every ten minutes or so, refreshing almost every app ( _maybe he has a Twitter? Who knows?!_ ), and I even (once) checked the local news for car accidents and missing person reports (okay, twice).

I look over across the street at the “Florist” sign, the lights off in the shop.

Who waters his plants when he’s not there?

“You alright there beansprout?”

“What? Yeah, totally.”

“I just can’t help but feel that you’re not relishing what just happened quite as much as I am,” he says.

“Varric, that’s because no one can quite relish these kinds of things the way that you can.”

“Ah,” he sighs. “What can I say? I’m a romantic.”

He leans back in his chair, hands behind his head, soaking it all in.

“Are we celebrating the last appointment of the day?”

Cassandra comes out of the back office to join us up at the counter. She sits down at the desk on the black rolling chair and throws back a handful of blueberries.

I pull on the edge of my shirt – it feels just a bit too soft, that ‘just-been-out-of-the-dryer’ feeling and it’s making my skin crawl a little.

“You want me to go pick up your car, Cass?”

“In a minute,” she says.

“Okay.”

The three of us sit in relative silence. The sound of rain hitting the roof and windows, some music drifting from the computer at Varric’s desk.

I almost tell them then about what happened last night, but I can’t bring myself to do it. It feels too big, like it’s not mine to tell. I saw a part of Solas that doesn’t feel right to share.

The shop is quiet. Varric stare after his client, Cassandra eats her blueberries, and my phone feels heavy in my hand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think "now you must endure," goes both ways.
> 
> i want to say thank you so much to everyone who has been so nice as this thing i write spirals into something bigger and more complex than i ever thought it would be. we're all on this ride together, and i feel impossibly lucky to have so many people rooting me on. every comment from the last chapter was so overwhelmingly nice & i couldn't ask for better people to be reading this.
> 
> also, just as an aside, if you're looking for more a little bit more angst & lonely solas/lavellan, i wrote a canon-abiding fic called [a lung full of dust and a tongue of wood](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3256082), which is super heady and prosey and you should check it out if you're into that kind of thing!!!
> 
> basically, thank you thank you thank you you're all such peaches


	13. Chapter 13

Wednesday ends, Thursday comes and goes in a blur, and Friday is here before I’m really ready for it. Still no sign or word from Solas, and I’ve moved from worried to angry. If he doesn’t want to tell me where he is or if he’s face-down in a ditch somewhere, fine. So be it.

I’ve got no time to invest in people who aren’t willing to invest back.

In the morning I go to the farmer’s market before work, and I pick up some stalks of celery and carrots to snack on, a few cartons of blueberries for Cassandra, and a small jar of jalapeño jelly for Josephine to give to her at dinner tonight.

I make a point to walk past Solas’ empty plot of the square without looking at it.

I show up to work with a carrot dangling out of my mouth, holding my bag from the market with both hands.

“Ugh, Beansprout, how can you eat that rabbit food?”

“I’m part rabbit,” I fire back, the words muffled by the aforementioned mouthful of carrot.

Varric chuckles, and I try to smile back at him without letting the vegetable fall, which proves difficult.

Cassandra is in the back room, filling out some paperwork. I plop the blueberries on her desk, and finally take a bite out of the carrot and remove it from my mouth.

“Hey, boss lady. What you got there?”

“Convention application,” she says, reaching for the blueberries. “There’s going to be an expo in New York in March, and I thought it might be good for the shop. Who knows – you might even be able to come too. Did you bring your sketchbook?”

I nod, and pull the book out of my bag.

“Can I not be here while you look at it?” I ask, setting it down on the desk.

“No.”

“Oh. Cool. That’s fine.”

It's not, but whatever.

I sit down in the chair across from her, and sink down low. Cassandra picks the book up, and thumbs to the most recent pages. She leans back in her chair, looking at each drawing with an attentive eye.

I chew on the inside of my lip, watching Cassandra look at my drawings for what feels like for _ever_.

Finally she closes the book, and tosses it in my direction. It lands on the end of her desk with a thud.

“You’re coming along,” is all she says.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“You’ve got nothing to add?”

“The watercolors are your best work.”

I blink.

“Wait, really?”

She nods.

“Really.”

I sit up in my chair.

“Oh!”

“It shows you have versatility. We need to cover all of our bases, here.”

I take the book back and grin like an idiot.

“You really think they’re good?”

“The daisies are the best, but yes, the rest are good. Your use of color is maturing, and I’ve seen your work on those skins. You should be doing more watercolors."

I don’t say anything. I think about Solas’ watercolor set, which I’ve placed on top of my bookshelf. I can’t reach them unless I stand on a chair, so they have stayed out of sight and unused since Tuesday.

“You’re going to watch Varric later, right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Okay, good. Expect to be behind the machine for that fill next week.”

I clutch my sketchbook to my chest, grinning. Praise from Cassandra is rare, and with the week I’ve had, it lifts my spirits considerably.

I thank her, and head back out to the shop floor.

“Oh, Ellana -- are you still going to Josephine’s later?”

“Oh, yeah – yes. I’m going.”

“You’re not going to bike there, are you?”

“Uh, I mean, I was probably _going_ to, but…”

“Didn’t Cullen offer you a ride?”

I lift an eyebrow.

“Yeah… but… how did you--?”

She waves a hand.

“Take him up on it. It will make things easier. Here, give me your phone, I’ll give you his number.”

I fumble to get my phone out of my pocket, and I pass it to her. Cassandra types a number into my phone, using her own phone as a reference. When she’s done, she holds my phone back out for me to take.

“Thanks,” I say. I tuck it back into my pocket and head back out onto the floor.

“Oh, and Ellana, bring a bottle of wine, would you?”

“Oh, I bought her some jalapeño –“

“Good. Bring her wine, too.”

“Sure.”

“That costs more than five dollars.”

 “Cassandra, what do you take me for, a _millionaire_?”

-

I end up texting Cullen after I get home from Varric’s appointment. (I learn that the appointment’s name is Sera, although I will probably forget. The whole thing goes pretty smoothly, and she remains excited bordering on terrifying to get the piece completed. I am terrified bordering on excited.)

I am surprised when Cullen texts me back almost immediately.

                                                          hey is that ride still on offer }—

                                                                           this is ellana btw }—

—{ Oh hey, absolutely!

—{ When and where do you want me to pick you up?

                                                                                                 oh }—

                                                                                        uhhhhh }—

                                           i’m home now, but I need to change,  

                                              & I need to swing by the market to 

                                                get a bottle of wine for josephine }—

—{ Haha, Ellana, that’s not an answer.

 —{ I can pick you up in half an hour if that’s okay? We can

        hit the market together. I need to buy a bottle, too.

I think of at least half a dozen jokes about beating up the market, or getting Josephine drunk on cheap wine, but end up going with a simple and timeless,

                                                                                  sounds perf }—

I toss my phone onto my bed, and stare into my closet. I don’t know what level of fancy this event is supposed to be, so I end up going with an oversized flannel shirt that I belt at the waist, some leggings, and heeled ankle boots. It’s like fancy-fusion.

I’m in the middle of reapplying my makeup when I hear the door buzzer go off.

“Hello?” I say, pressing the little plastic button down.

“Hey, Ellana, it’s me.”

I think it’s hilarious that Cullen is the kind of person who doesn’t just send an “I’m here,” text and be done with it.Nope, he has to go to the _door_.

“Oh, hey Cullen. I’ll be down in a second.”

I transfer my wallet, keys, and the jar of jelly from the market from my backpack to a purse, throw on my coat and scarf and head downstairs. Cullen is waiting outside the door.

I still feel a little weird about taking him up on his offer to drive me, but I shake it off and remind myself that giving someone a ride is the kind of thing that _friends_ do. Y’know. For other _friends_.

(Unless the ride you offer takes you into the roughest neighborhood of the city to help a mysterious person (fugitive?) in a mysterious location and potentially puts you in serious danger. Then I’m not quite sure what that does to your relationship or its relevant descriptor.)

“Hey man, thanks for giving me a ride. I really appreciate it. I’d never be able to bike in these,” I say, showing him the heel on my boots.

“It’s really not a problem, Ellana. I’m happy to.”

“They do make me almost shoulder-height to you though, don't they?”

“Yeah, so long as you don’t lose your balance and end up at ankle-height.”

I snort.

He smiles and gestures to the car parked at the curb, a silver Honda Civic.

“You drive a _dad_ car?”

Cullen begins to walk over to the driver’s side door, but shoots a dirty look back at me.

“Right, sorry, I’m so sorry. This is a gift horse, and that was the mouth.”

I pull open the door to the car and slide in. His car is impressively clean. The only scrap of trash in sight is a receipt on the dashboard, and I peek at it as he gets in and starts the car. It’s from a coffee shop on the other side of town.

“Are we off to the market?”

 “Yup,” I agree. “Cass wants me to get a wine for Josie that’s over five dollars, even though I already got her some mad sweet jalapeño jelly, so I’m a bit strapped for cash. Don’t expect me to help pay for gas.”

Cullen laughs to himself as he turns onto the main road.

“Ellana, I’m not expecting you to pay for gas. I’m giving you a ride because I _want_ to.”

“Right, right, I know. Anyway. What kind of wine do you think pairs well with jalapeño jelly?”

Cullen laughs again, though this time it’s louder.

“I’m going to tell you something right now, before we even go into the market. I don’t know a fucking _thing_ about wine.”

-

We show up at Josephine’s house about half an hour later, each of us with a bottle of wine in hand. In the end, we had just gone for the best labels. Like adults.

Leliana opens the door before I can knock a second time, a glass of red wine already in her hand.

“Oh, Ellana!” She leans forward to kiss my cheek. “Josie is in the kitchen, and everyone else is already here.”

She turns and heads back into the house up the split level stairs toward the kitchen, where the sound of conversation and laughter is drifting from the open door.

“You can hang your coats on the pegboard,” she says back to us.

I set my bottle of wine down on a small table, and start to shrug off my coat.

“Here, let me help you with that,” Cullen says, and I feel him take the shoulders of my coat and pull to help me out.

The landing is small and doesn’t leave much room for maneuvering the endeavor. I lean forward, trying to minimize any chance of physical contact, but the skin on the back of my neck prickles regardless, as if I’m expecting him to touch me.

“Thanks,” I say, and I watch as he hangs my coat next to Cassandra’s. I pick up my and Cullen’s bottles from the table and head slowly up the stairs toward the sound of chattering voices.

Josephine’s house is small, but tastefully decorated in neutrals and golds. She’s lit a few candles on the coffee table in the living room, lending a cozy glow.

The kitchen is warm and full to capacity with Josephine at the stove, stirring rice and peppers in a huge cast-iron _paella_ pan, Cassandra sitting on a countertop, and Leliana leaning against the doorframe.

“Ellana is that you? And Cullen? Good, everything is just about ready, I just need to put the meat and shrimp on, and then we’re done.”

Josephine twists away from the stove to look at us and smiles. Her hair is tied up, though a few wisps have fallen free to frame her face and curl at the back of her neck.

“Hello Josephine,” Cullen smiles, and leans over to give her a quick peck on the cheek.

“We brought wine,” I say, offering the two $10 bottles to the room, and Leliana plucks them from my hands. I make eye-contact with Cassandra in the corner, who nods at me. 

“If you’d like, you can join Dorian, Isaak, and Varric in the other room? We’re pretty much done in here,” Leliana says.

“Are you sure you don’t need any help?”

“At this point it would simply be too many cooks in the kitchen. We already have one lazeabout,” Leliana says, gesturing to Cassandra in the corner, who _tsks_ in response, but offers nothing further to defend herself.

I send some finger guns her way, and head into the adjoining dining room, where Josephine has set a _beautiful_ tablescape. I think that this might just be the most adult get-together I’ve ever been to. I’m sure Josephine is able to rustle up better company than us, but she seems to always invite us to these kinds of things anyway.  

Dorian sits at the table in the adjoining room, propping his feet up on the lap of a man I don’t know, but recognize as the barrel-chested man from Leliana’s party. I assume him to be Isaak. The two of them are chatting away to Varric, who is showing the both of them a bunch of pictures on his phone. It must be his 'Horrible Tattoos Varric Has Seen' album – a classic round of tales from Varric’s repertoire, and an easy conversation starter.

“Gentlemen,” I say, waving a hello and settling in next to Varric.

“Beansprout!” Varric cheers. “Good, I’m glad you’re here to verify this next one. Were you there when we did that cover-up of that horrible shoulder piece – the dragon?”

“Ellana,” Dorian practically purrs before I can answer Varric. “Lovely to see you again – although I note that you are not attached to your handsome ginger juvenile delinquent. A pity!”

“A redhead, huh? Love redheads.”

Dorian pushes at Isaak’s chest with his big toe.

“Oh come off it, you big lummox.”

“Yeah, he’s ah, busy,” I say. “How are classes, Dorian?”

“Oh, don’t get him started,” Isaak moans. “I swear, he has a _lengthy_ diatribe for each student who annoys him. Which is all of them.”

I laugh, and pull my purse from my shoulders and set it on the back of my chair, pulling out my gift to Josephine and setting it at her place.

“Oh come on, I’m sure we’d love to hear it.”

“I feel like we’re all ignoring a significantly more interesting story,” Varric says, holding up his phone to show us a hilariously bad dragon tattoo on some poor guy’s arm he’d covered a few years ago.

“Oh, now _that_ is truly hideous.”

“I kind of like it.”

Dorian stares daggers at Isaak, and it’s kind of cute.

I kind of want to vomit.

“Alright, watch out everyone,” Josephine says from the kitchen, heading our way with the _paella_ pan in both hands. Cassandra and Cullen follow her carrying side dishes, and Leliana is after them, carrying three bottles of wine _and_ her own glass.

They set the dishes down on the table, Josephine’s authentic Spanish _paella_ deservedly taking center stage, and everyone sits down: Josephine at the head of the table across from Dorian, Leliana to her left, Cass next to Isaak, Cullen next to me.

“That’s from me,” I say, pointing to the jar in front of Josephine. “Wine _and_ jalapenos. Double whammy.”

“Oh, thank you Ellana,” she coos over it.

Everyone starts to dig into the food in front of them, or pouring themselves glasses of wine. Dorian reaches out with greedy hands for the serving spoon to the _paella_ , but he can’t quite reach, so Cassanadra just plates his food for him.  

“Oh, Cullen, do you want me to get you a glass of cranberry juice or something?”

“Could we?” Cullen asks, and he and Leliana head back into the kitchen.

“Josie, what’s the occasion?” I ask, leaning over across Cullen’s empty seat. “This is beautiful – why are you wasting it on _us_?”  

“Wasting?” She tuts at me. “Food is better shared.”

I shrug.

“Well, thanks.”

I heap a few forkfuls of food onto my plate, and look over at Dorian thumbing a bit of sauce off of Isaak’s nose. Isaak lets him, though he looks as if he resents it.

I mentally throw up everywhere, and suck on my teeth a little too loudly.

“Ugh, Ellana, that’s a disgusting habit.”

_No, cleaning your boyfriend’s face is a disgusting habit._

“No, Cassandra, cocaine is a disgusting habit,” says Cullen, without missing a beat.

I look up at him making his way back to his seat, a glass of sparkling cranberry juice in his hand.

 _Close enough_.

He looks at me and smiles.

I duck my head and shove a forkful of food in my mouth.

_Why does this make me feel so weird?_

_-_

As time passes, conversation blooms around me, wine gets drunk (or in Cullen’s case, cranberry juice), and food is eaten in copious amounts.

I restrict myself to a glass and a half, but laughter flows as easily as if I’d had three or four.

“Ugh, I’m _so full_ ,” I say eventually, leaning back in my chair, hands on my stomach. “I’m going to have to undo a notch on my belt like some overstuffed drunk uncle at Thanksgiving. Josephine, how could you have possibly made so much food?”

“Well, I expect it all to go home with people. I am _not_ keeping all of this here.”

“I’ll happily help you with that one,” Isaak says, already helping himself to another plate.

“Tiny, do you have five stomachs hidden in there? How can you possible still be hungry?

“Don’t ask him – his whole family is like that.”

Based on the face that Dorian makes, I think Isaak has kicked him under the table.

“Well it’s true.”

“Well it’s damn impressive. You should enter one of those Oktoberfest eating contests – they do pie, bratwurst, the works.”

“I was thinking about going to that – is it any good? I’ve seen them setting up all week at the market square,” Isaak says, still shoveling food in his mouth.

Leliana stares at him with her mouth open.

“Oh, it’s great,” Varric says. “I think tonight was the first night, but it’ll run all weekend.”

“Too showy for me,” Leliana says. “Nothing holds a candle to the real thing.”

Cassandra rolls her eyes at that, and I laugh into my hand.

“Cullen, do you have any plans this weekend?” Cassandra asks, looking over at me.

“Um, no, no, I wasn’t planning anything,” he says to her.

“You should go to the festival! Maybe you can bring someone?”

Cassandra is still looking at me.

“Hey, do you want help cleaning up dishes, Josephine?” I ask.

“I think if we can just get them into the kitchen, that would be perfect,” she says, starting to stand.

I leap at the opportunity, scooping up as many plates as I can carry into the kitchen, and set them down next to the sink. I take a second, shifting my weight from foot to foot, staring down at the shrimp casings and Siracha stains on Varric’s plate.

“You should probably tell Cassandra to stop pushing it,” Leliana says from behind me, setting down the last few plates on the countertop.

“Can’t I just pretend it’s definitely not happening?” I put my face in my hands.

“She’s definitely matchmaking.”

“Like some meddling suburban housewife,” I say. “It’s so not like her.”

“Oh, it so definitely _is_ like her. You should see her at neighborhood watch meetings. She's a regular Emma.”

“I knew we shouldn’t have made her block captain,” I moan.

“ _Co_ -captain,” Leliana corrects me.

I shoot her a dirty look.

“Hey Josie?” Leliana calls back to the dining room. “Do you think it’s a yay or a nay on dessert, then?”

There is a chorus of ‘Nay’s from the other room, and one gruff voice asking, “Wait, what’s for dessert?”

Leliana grins at me, and gestures for me to follow her back into the dining room.

“Well, I’m hammered,” she says, leaning on the back of her chair. “And if we’re not staying for dessert, I need someone to give me a ride home.”

“Varric and I can –“

“Oh, no Cass, Cullen lives near where I do, right? Can you give me a lift?”

She makes puppy eyes at Cullen, who looks at Cassandra, up at me, then back to Leliana.

“Yes, yes, of course, Leliana.”

“Great. I’m tired. Can we go now then?”

I shake my head.

_Masterful._

-

The ride back to my apartment is quiet, and the Tupperware container full of leftover _paella_ is warm on my thighs. Cullen has plugged his phone into the car’s auxiliary port, and some Dizzy Gillespie plays quietly from the speakers. Leliana tries to sing along, despite the fact that there are no words.

“Um, thanks again for the ride.”

“Of course,” he says, pulling off to the curb in front of my building.

I give him a small smile, and push open the door.

“Ellana, wait.”

I pause, halfway out of the car, and look back at Cullen. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Leliana look over at me.

“Can we just,” he gestures to outside of the car, and looks back at me.

“Uh?”

Cullen sighs, unbuckles his seatbelt, and gets out of the car. He walks around to the hood, standing in the headlights.

I walk over to him.

“What’s up?” I ask, determined to sound as casual as possible.

“I feel like… I feel like I may have been misled.”

I furrow my brow and look up at him.

“Not by you.”

“Oh.”

“By Cassandra.”

“Oh.”

“She’s… she’s my sponsor.”

“Your sponsor?”

“From N.A.”

“That’s how we know each other. That’s how I got my job doing the books for the shop. I’ve always trusted her judgment, and she suggested – stupid, really, I guess – but I guess… she was wrong, and I feel like an idiot.”

I shake my head.

“No, no, Cullen, please. You’re not an idiot.”

“I’m not?”

He looks a little hopeful, and I think I feel my heart actually _wrench_.

 _So that’s where that saying comes from_.

“No, no, I mean – you’re really great.”

“Ah,”

I hate saying it.

I really hate it.

We both know that it’s code for “You’re great, but not great enough.”

And it sucks because I feel like in some other universe, Cullen definitely  _is_ great enough. 

“Listen, I’m going through something really weird right now with someone, and I guess I’m just not quite sure what it…”

“With that florist.”

I’m surprised by how resigned he sounds.

“Yeah,” I breathe. “With that florist.”

“I’m really sorry, Ellana, if I ever came across as too—“

“No, no, you’re the opposite of “too” anything. Really.”

He looks down at the ground for a second, and nods his head.

“Right.”

“Right,” I agree.

“Friends, then?”

 He holds out his hand for me to shake, and I laugh. I feel a weight lift from my shoulders.

“Yeah,” I say, taking his hand. “Friends.”

We shake, and it really feels like that helps put us on the same page.

“I’ll see you tomorrow maybe,” he says, heading back to the car.

“Tomorrow?” I ask, squinting into the light of the headlights.

“Oktoberfest? I think a group of us are still going. It would be great if you came. Maybe we can get back at Cassandra.”

I smile, clutching the warm Tupperware of _paella_ close to my chest, keeping me warm.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’d like that.”

Cullen smiles back at me, bless his heart, and drives away.

I make my way up the stairs to my apartment, feeling pretty good about myself. Maybe it’s the wine, but maybe it’s the feeling that things are beginning to stabilize themselves again.

_If I never see Solas again, it will be too soon._

But as soon as I see the letter taped to my door, my name written in that frustratingly familiar script, it all comes rushing back and hits me like a ton of bricks.

_Well, shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys has it really been almost a week since my last update??? #whoops!!! who even am i. (the next chapter is a little less than halfway done, so hopefully you won't have to wait so long for the next installment!!!) 
> 
> thank you so much for reading, especially in this intermission of sorts while solas is away. it's agonizing for you, me, and lavellan all around!!! xx
> 
>  **EDIT** : oh my GOSH you guys it's basically this fic's ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY I can't believe it thank you all so much for reading and being absolute pals and making me want to finish writing this thing. i love each and every one of you oh man


	14. Chapter 14

I don’t even read the letter – that’s how burning mad I am.

I unlock my door for a few brief seconds to set the tupperware container of Spanish food on my coffee table before ripping the envelope off my door, shoving it into my purse and heading right back down the stairs, my face flushed with rage.

_Who does he think he is?_

I unlock my bike from the rack in record speed, swing my leg over the seat, and I’m off.

I don’t even care that I’m biking in impossible heels or that it’s almost literally freezing out.

I start to care a little when I'm two miles into the ride, but then I remember the worry and the anger Solas has put me through only to leave a goddamned note on my door, and it pushes me through the last few miles despite the blisters I feel forming on the backs of my feet.

The whole ride over I imagine every possible thing I could say to him – it starts with punching him square in the jaw, and it also ends with me punching him square in the jaw.

I’m out of breath and at his door not even thirty minutes later, and I practically dump my bike on his lawn.

Not that he’d care anyway, for the way he takes care of it.

I huff my way up the steps on his porch, trying to be as loud as possible with each stomp. It’s eleven o’clock at night, and there’s no one around for miles. If this doesn’t wake him up, nothing will.

“Hey!” I say, slamming my open palm on his door. “I know you’re in there, Solas. You’d better answer me or I swear to god…”

I keep hitting the door until I hear the lock click, and the door swings open.

It’s Solas.

My fist freezes midair.

He looks like shit.

 “You look like shit.”

I say it like a knee-jerk reflex.

His hair is limp, hanging in strings, and his face is shiny with dirt. He must not have showered in days. Or even slept. The circles under his eyes are as dark as ink, his eyelids drooped, his jaw slack. He’s wearing the same clothes I last saw him in, although now they’re loose from days of wear and covered in stains.

“Thank you, Ellana – if that’s all?”

His voice is so low I can barely hear him, although it is impressively still as cool and measured as ever.

He starts to close the door.

I put my foot in between it and the frame.

“No way,” I say. “You owe me an explanation. Which is starting to become a habit with you.”

He wipes his face with his hands, pushing the heels of his palms into his eyes, but relents. I imagine he’s too tired to put up a real fight. He walks back into the house, leaving the door open behind him, and I take it as an invitation to enter.

“I am to understand this to mean you didn’t read the letter,” he says, making his way up the stairs.

“No, I didn’t read the letter,” I say, spitting the words, following him up the stairs. “I have a thing about letters. Solas, where have you been? What happened? Why didn’t you call, hell, even send me a text just to know that you were alive?”

“I needed some time,” he says when he reaches the top of the stairs. “Take care of a few things.”

He turns down the hallway, and walks straight through to the last door.

The lights are off, and as I walk down the hall following him, the smell of old wood and pipe smoke hits me and I realize: _I’m in his house_.

I kick myself in the head for not taking in more of my surroundings downstairs where the lights were on, to see if I couldn’t get some kind of clue about him, about who he is when he’s at home.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he says, turning to me in the doorframe. “Will you grant me that, at least, before your line of questioning?”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

I cross my arms, more of a show of anger than the real thing. I guess I hadn’t considered that he might not have been home for long. Or that he had stopped by my place before even going to his.

“You’re more than welcome to make yourself at home in the meantime.”

He gestures to the room behind him.

Solas disappears through a side door, and after a few beats I hear him start the shower.

I step into his room.

The first thing I do is unzip my boots, leaving me in my socks. The balls of my feet burn from the angle of my shoes, and from biking so far in them. My heels are red and raw from blisters. I pinch the pair of boots between my index and middle finger and look around.

The hardwood floor has been covered by a threadbare rug, worn and made pastel from years of footsteps. I imagine that it was a vibrant red and intricately patterned once, though there are only impressions of that now. Against the wall under a window is an old writing desk, covered in papers and books and a small desk lamp – the only source of light in the room. Instead of a desk chair, Solas has opted for a green wingback chair, almost as worn as the rug, though he has draped a throw over the back, I assume to make it more comfortable.

Against the opposite wall is Solas’ bed – a king sized mattress piled with quilts on a wrought iron frame, and it’s almost too big for the room. It hasn’t been slept in recently, the covers turned neatly down.

More notable, however, are the drawings.

Between the desk and his bed are a few knee-high bookshelves, and tacked to the walls above them are hundreds of drawings, a haphazard patchwork of charcoal sketches and ink washes and watercolor paintings. The majority of the drawings are of flowers or animals, but there are a few portraits in the mix, and a handful of landscapes and cityscapes.

I cross over to the wall to get a closer look, walking gingerly, as if I step too loudly I might disturb something.

In the bottom right-hand corner of each drawing is a small blocky “FH,” and then the year. They’re all dated from almost a decade ago except for one.

There’s a small watercolor sketch tacked to the center of the wall that is dated from this year – a detail of a larger piece perhaps, or just an anatomy study. The naked curve of a shoulder meeting the neck, a collarbone, a chin, a pair of too-red lips.

That’s all there is, but there’s something about it.

The shape of the jaw, maybe, or a stray brushstroke that makes it look as if a few delicate lines of a tattoo are creeping up toward the hollow of the collarbone. 

I almost think it looks like me.

I hear the sound of water shut off from the other room, and I step back.

Solas reemerges a few moments later with a towel hanging in the crook of his elbow, wearing a pair of black sweatpants and pulling a grey undershirt on.

“Who’s ‘FH’?” I ask.

His eyes glance from me to the drawings on the wall.

“Just a signature,” he says, starting to towel dry his hair.

“Mmm.”

Solas moves to sit in the wingback chair, turning it to face me with his foot before sitting down. The color has returned to his cheeks, but the circles under his eyes remain.

He looks up at me, and he looks so tired. I feel something tugging inside of me to apologize to him for keeping him from getting some rest, something telling me to leave him be.

I swallow and force the feeling to the pit of my stomach.

“How are you, Solas?”

It feels like a safe enough question, but he doesn’t react.

I lean against the bed frame waiting for him to answer, and the iron bars press into my back. I set my shoes down.

“I will survive.”

He’s so quiet, it feels like it takes effort to get the phrase across the room to me.

He looks at the floor, but I tilt my head down, trying to meet his gaze. His eyes flicker, then find mine.

“It hurts. It always does,” he finally says.

I am struck by the frankness of it.

“Always?”

“I have had brushes with death with unfortunate regularity.”

“What? Why? Solas, who were those people?”

He settles his chin in his hand, his arm propped up by the arm of the chair.

“Sophie was a friend. A very close friend of mine from before… Before I moved back here.”

He leans back to the desk behind him, pulling open a small drawer. He takes from it a bundle of photographs, and sifts through them, finally pulling one from the group and hands it to me.

The photo looks as if it were taken from a Kodak disposable camera. The colors are dull, like I’m looking at the figures through frosted glass. It is still unmistakably Solas and Sophie, if from four or five years ago. Sophie has thrown her arms around a reluctant Solas; her curly brown hair haloing her face, brushing against Solas’ cheek, and her smile is so big you can see her gums. Solas is looking up at the camera with his eyes, but his head is tilted downward, as if he were just about to duck out of frame had it not been for Sophie’s grip on him.

They look happy. Effortless.

“Did you call the police?” I ask, staring down into Sophie’s smiling eyes.

I know it’s a stupid question. I saw that apartment, the people who were there. Sophie herself even demanded that the police not get involved.

The corner of Solas’ mouth turn upward, but it is not a smile.

“No. I did not.”

“Thank you for coming back,” I say after a few seconds.

“Any thought otherwise had not crossed my mind.”

I turn the photograph over. There, written in a thin and slanted hand is written, _“To my bright and brilliant, always wise, always wandering Solas. Try smiling more often. Yours, Sophie._ ”

I set the photo down on the bed.

“Where did you go?”

Solas picks at his fingernails while he talks.

“I had to see her family. Of sorts. What’s left of them, anyway. It was strange to see her house so empty, so quiet. I think they knew before I got there.”

 I take a deep breath.

“What you did was merciful, Solas.”

“Was it?”

The question is earnest, but there is an edge to his voice like he’s challenging me.

“I think so.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, and he looks down at his lap.

“Sophie didn’t have papers. It will just get swept under the rug, and I’m the one who made sure of that. Her family has no body to bury.” He pauses and breathes. “It doesn’t feel merciful to me.”

My hands are shaking, so I shove them into the pockets of my coat. I try and make my voice as level as his.

“I can’t pretend to know what you’re going through, or what you’re thinking Solas, but I want you to know that you can trust me. That the next time, you don’t have to be alone.”

He shifts in his chair.

“It has been a long time since I had someone I could trust.”

“I know.”

“I’m working on it.”

“I know.”

We look at each other.

“Thank you, Ellana. You have acted like a real friend to me."

"I want to be a real friend.”

He stands up, and places his hands on the small of his back.

“I understand if you have been upset with me.”

I laugh, but it feels hollow.

“Yeah, ‘upset’ might be an understatement.”

He crosses over to the middle of the room so that we’re almost standing shoulder-to-shoulder, though we’re looking in different directions. I feel my heart beating in my ears, and it’s so loud I swear he can hear it. I don't move.

He smiles down at the floor, opens his mouth, then closes it again.

Finally he says, “Would you like a glass of water?”

“Oh,” I say. “Sure.”

He crosses back into the bathroom, and I peel off my coat, setting it on the chair. I peek at one of the photos from the top of the pile that Solas pulled from his desk – a group shot of five or six people all piled onto an old couch. I’m struck by how they look just like my friends – pierced, tattooed, and clothed in what can only be thrift-store finds.

I recognize one of the people as Sophie in the corner, her hair cut shorter than in the other photograph, and a few years younger still. In the center of the group must be Solas – but it looks almost nothing like him. His hair is longer, piled on the top of his head in a messy half-knot, and he holds a cigarette in the same hand as the neck of a beer bottle. He’s leaning back, his mouth curled into a smirk, staring straight at the camera.

“Ellana, I’ve been thinking.”

I turn around to see Solas standing with two water glasses in the doorway to the bathroom. He looks so different compared to the person in the photograph. Not just older, but wearier.  

He sets one of the glasses down on his nightstand and slides onto the bed, sitting cross-legged and facing me. He holds out the other glass for me.

“Oh? And what have you thought?”

I take the glass, and settle on the bed across from him, mirroring his cross-legged position.

“I do not know many people like you.”

I think back to the photo on his desk.

“I find that difficult to believe.”

“No, I mean,” he takes his own water glass from the nightstand and looks at it. “I have tried my best to keep to myself the past few years, to not inflict myself on other people. It has been rare – both recently and in my youth – to meet someone who has tried to get past that part of me.”

“You’re not inflicting yourself on me, Solas. You’re not a disease.”

“I am merely saying that I am not used to people wanting to get to know me. Nor am I used to the feeling of wanting to know someone else.”

I feel my cheeks burn, and I take a sip of water, surprised at how steady my hand is.

“What changed?” I ask.

“I cannot be certain.”

He tilts his head when he says it, as though he is truly considering it, and the way he looks at me makes me feel like I am suddenly on display. His eyes have a spark behind them that was not there before.

“Would you like to play a game?” He asks settling into the pillows behind him.

“Depends,” I say. “Have you seen the _Saw_ movies?”

“No.”

“No you haven’t seen the _Saw_ movies, or no this isn’t like that?”

“No, this isn’t like that.”

“Well, good. What are the rules, then?”

“I ask you a question, you ask me a question. You must either answer honestly, or opt to pass to another question.”

“Honesty hour,” I roll my shoulders back. “Got it.”

“Would you like to go first?”

“Okay,” I nod. “For real: who’s ‘FH’?”

“Pass.”

“Oh, come on. This was your game.”

“It’s the way I signed my paintings. It used to stand for something when I was younger, but now I’m just used to signing them that way.”

“What did it stand for?”

“No follow up questions, Ellana. It’s my turn now.”

I lean back on the bedframe.

“Why tattoos?”

“Why have them, or why do them?”

“Both, I suppose.”

I bite my lip and I look down at my arms, the patterns and colors sweeping across my skin.

“I tattoo because I love it,” I say, but it doesn’t quite cover it. “I think there’s something about a culture of people who wear what they love on their surface. It weeds out the people who are going to judge you for loving something enough to carry it with you permanently. It forces you to commit to what you know, or what you think you know. You have to bear it all – even if you regret it later, it’s still a part of you.”

I shrug.

“I guess I like that certainty. Does that make sense?”

“I suppose.”

“I take it that tattoos haven’t really been your thing?”

“Not as a rule, no. Why didn’t you read the letter I left for you?”

“Wait, it’s my turn,” I tut.

“You technically got three,” he points out.

I glare at him.

He takes a sip of water, and I feel my belly get hot with residual anger.

“I didn’t read it because I was tired of you refusing to connect with me. If you could leave a letter, you could have called. Or texted. Or waited for me to get home. And besides,” I add, “I hate letters.”

“Is that what it felt like? Like I was refusing to connect?”

“No follow up questions. Maybe. I don’t know. Whose house is this?”

“Mine. It was my childhood home. Ellana, does it truly feel like I am refusing to connect with you?” He leans forward, setting his glass down on the nightstand without looking away from me.

“Pass,” I say, looking him in the eye.

If his eyes held a spark behind them before, now it was a fire.

“Have you ever left a life behind? Surely you must be a different person from the girl you had been growing up on a farm. You change. Your spirit changes.”

He speaks quietly, quickly. I watch his mouth form the words, his brow crease over the scar on his eyebrow. His face is close enough that I could count his freckles.

“I don’t know,” I say, and I am being honest.

He wets his lips with his tongue.

“Solas,” I say, and it comes out as a whisper. “Can I ask you something else?”

His eyes soften and he tilts his head. 

"That painting. Is it me?"

He blinks.

“I suppose I must admit," he says, "that I have been thinking about our kiss.”

I lean across the bed to place my water glass on the nightstand next to him. As I pull back, I can feel his breath on my neck. He leans forward just enough to press his nose in the hollow between my ear and my jaw, and I feel my breath catch. I place a hand on the pillow behind him to steady myself.

"I fear that in the long run," he says, and I can feel his voice more than hear it, the way it rumbles from his chest against my skin. "This will mean trouble."

He starts to pull away, but I place a hand on the side of his face before he can get too far.

"Trouble is my middle name, remember?"

I hardly even have time to smile before his mouth is over mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (: 
> 
> thanks for reading xx


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just another quick update! v. busy week. have some self-indulgent cuddles(:

Solas and I had kissed approximately one time before tonight, and the impression I had gotten then did not adequately prepare me for this moment. Where kissing Solas in the museum had been fueled by alcohol and adrenaline to be fast and feverish, kissing him now is almost entirely the opposite.

This is slow. He is slow and measured and I am so aware of his body leaning into mine as his hand brushes my jaw, staying his thumb below my ear with his fingers in my hair.

Goosebumps erupt down my neck and I breathe in through my nose sharply, reaching forward, settling my hand on top of his on his thigh, then pulling his hand to my waist.

He responds by curling his fingers against the nape of my neck, and I can feel his nails digging into the skin there, a sharp pain that compels me forward, further into him, and I gasp. I sit up onto my knees, my chest pressed against his, and I can feel the heat of his body so acutely.

His arm circles around my waist, his other arm curling around my shoulder and the heel of his palm nestles just above my neck, his fingers splayed in the tangles of my hair, cradling the back of my head.

It is measured, yes, but it builds.

I can feel his heart beating in his chest, thundering in the off-beats of my own as his kisses slow to something softer, and he moves to place a hand on either side of my face.

"Ellana," he says against my mouth, kissing me between every other word, "I haven't slept in three days, so I need you to assure me that I am not, in fact, hallucinating."

I guide him with my body to lie against the pillows behind him, my knees against his hips.

"You're not dreaming," I say, placing a hand on either side of the bed behind him, and my hair falls around us like a curtain. I duck my head to press my lips against his neck.

"See?" I whisper into where his neck and shoulder meet, taking skin between my teeth and biting down.

“Ah,” he winces, and in almost the same breath he catches my jaw in his hand. Rough.

He turns my head to look at him, holding my chin between his forefinger and his thumb, fingers pressing into my skin so intently I swear he'll leave an indentation.

“Ellana, I haven’t slept in three days,” he says through gritted teeth.

“And?”

I’ll admit it, I purposefully rock my hips just enough for him to hitch his breath and for his hands to grab at the tops of my thighs seemingly of their own volition.

“ _And_ for the sake of my sanity,” he says, and in one fell swoop he lifts me off of him to lie in the space next to him. Our legs stay intertwined, and he sets a hand on my face.

He does look tired, I’ll give him that.

I wrinkle my nose, and he laughs. It sounds so much lighter, like something in his chest has opened up, and that makes me feel really good.

But then he sighs (heavier again) and twists so that he is looking at the ceiling. He puts his hand on his forehead with the heel of his palm at the bridge of his nose, his elbow sticking out into the air.   

He stays like that for a while, staring at the ceiling, not saying anything.

I busy myself with counting the loose threads on a quilt, paying careful attention to the way his ankle is hooked around my calf, the way his wet hair leaves water marks in the pillow, the measured rise and fall of his chest as he calculates something inside his head.

I might be in his bed, in his room, but there's something he keeps inside himself that is bigger than this. I know that, but I can't even begin to approach it even though I can practically feel it in the room like a third person.

I am reminded of the story about the four blind men who are tasked with describing an elephant, each of them only acquainted with an individual part so that they come to believe that an elephant is just the trunk, or just the ear, or the foot, or the tail.

I feel like all four blind men trying to reconcile Solas at home, Solas the artist, Solas with Sophie, Solas the florist.

I wonder when I will find the elephant.

“Do you want me to g—“

“No.”

He turns back into his side and looks at me. His eyes are like steel.

 _Who has_ grey _eyes?_

“I want…” he breathes. “I want you to be patient with me. And I'd like for you to stay.”

I feel my mouth open, like maybe I'm going to say something, but my better judgment closes it again in the nick of time.

“If you can. If you want to.”

“Okay. Yes. Sure.” I shake my head. “One of those. Take your pick.”

He smiles, and I can actually see his jaw unclench and relax.

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

I think I see him reach for my hand, but maybe he second guesses himself and settles on my forearm instead, his index finger landing due north on the compass tattooed there. He traces the outline of it, the rope that curls around it, down to the anchor in the center of my left palm.

“Why the anchor?”

“To remind me to weather the storm. How old are you?”

“Thirty-two. Why do you hate letters?”

I sigh.

“My mom has written me a letter almost every two weeks since she figured out where I lived and where I work. I haven't read a single one. It's left kind of a bad taste in my mouth for anything in an envelope.”

He closes his eyes.

“You haven't read a single letter?”

“Not a one.”

“How long has she been in jail?”

“Since just before my eighth birthday.”

“That’s what, almost twenty years ago?”

“Ish.”

“Huh.”

“Why?”

“Just… curious.”

I look up at him, his eyes still closed, his finger still in the palm of my hand.

“Solas?”

“Mmm?”

“Are you asleep?”

“Mmm.”

“Okay.”

I use my right hand to reach for the edge of a quilt and throw it over us, reluctant to disrupt the way our legs are intertwined, or the way he has his hand on mine.

“Ellana?”

“Yeah?”

“You should open one.”

I purse my lips and stare up at the ceiling.

“Why?”

Solas’ leg gives an involuntary twitch, and I feel his breath warm on my hand, and I know that he is already asleep.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mini hiatus (you could probably already tell)!!!! my boyfriend is visiting from "england" for a week and he wants me to pay "attention" to him. i thought i'd get more writing down than i am, but thems the breaks i guess!!!! i'll be back up and running at full nerd-capacity on the 23rd(: 
> 
> thank you so much for reading & commenting & leaving me kudos and even putting the little notes on your bookmarks (yes i read them!!!! hello duh!!!) xx


	16. Chapter 16

When I wake up in the morning, I notice drool on my pillow (attractive), and that Solas is gone. I can't say that I am entirely surprised.

I suppose his little disappearing acts are something that I'm going to have to get used to.

I am, however, a little surprised that I just slept the whole night through next to someone who has had sex in the back of a police car as chastely as you please.  

I sit up in Solas’ bed ( _yes, brain: Solas’ bed_ ) and wipe my face, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. The light coming in from the alcove window is bright and clear, although I'm not entirely sure what time of day it is.

I reach for my purse, hanging off the foot of the bed, to check my phone, but of course it's dead.

“Uggggh,” I moan, because it feels like my normal response to a minor inconvenience like that. Solas’ house feels too quiet, so it’s almost like I'm clinging to anything even resembling normal right now. An “I-can't-believe-my-phone-is-dead” groan feels about the most normal thing I can muster.

I throw the quilt off of me, cross over to Solas’ desk and plug my phone into the charger he has plugged in over there.

I notice that the stacks of photographs are gone.

I wet my lips and tap my fingers on the desk.

I leave his room, and head down the stairs. In the light of day I am able to notice more details about the house than either time I had been here before. The framed prints on the walls, for example, are all serious botany work. Cross sections of different plant sections and the like. They’re each very finely detailed. The work of a craftsman.

I shake my head when I notice the same small blocky “FH” in the bottom corners of each print. These must be the prints he sold to make his living.

I make my way past the landing and into the kitchen, and it’s pretty bare-bones. There is a copper kettle sitting on the stove (the kind you have to heat with an actual burner), but the cabinets are practically empty. There’s a basket of lemons next to the sink, a jar of honey that I recognize from one of the farmer’s market stands. Aside from that there’s very little – a carton of eggs (half empty), a hard square of bleu cheese in plastic wrap, and a single solitary beer. An IPA, which I respect.

I do manage to scrounge up a container of instant coffee ( _blech_ ), and I make a mental note to invite Solas to one of Josephine’s dinners.

Through the window over the sink, I can see the greenhouse in the side yard, and there is a shadow of movement.

_Of course._

I bite through a smile, and fill the kettle.

-

I abandon my socks at the door to find that scabs have already formed over my blisters. The frost on the grass is cool and soothes my still aching feet. Morning mist sends a chill down my spine, sending goosebumps trickling down my arms. I quickly tip-toe to the greenhouse door and shoulder it open.

The air is wet and warm, and it smells like dirt.

Solas is awake and dressed, a pair of scissors in one hand and bent over a particularly colorful bunch of flowers.

“Hey,” I say, and he turns around almost immediately.

He looks so much better. Awake and wide-eyed.

“Ellana, you’re awake – I’m sorry, I didn’t think – I haven’t been in here for a few days, and I’m afraid I may have to do some pruning. The sprinklers and thermostat are on a timer, but…” He sighs.

“Good morning to you, too,” I say, but I can hear the smile in my voice.  

 “Ah, right. Good morning.”

“Although the concern for the flowers is endearing, I must say.”

“I’m glad you think so,” he smirks.

I put forward the mug in my left hand.

“Lemon and honey?”

He raises an eyebrow.

“The decades-old instant coffee, abundance of lemons, and a lack of tea gave it away.”

He wipes the dirt off his hands on his jeans and places his hands on either side of the mug, overtop my own.

“Very astute,” he says, and slides the cup from my grasp. He goes back to the plants and the scissors.

I find a relatively empty table and lift myself up onto it, my feet dangling off the side.

“Did you sleep well?”

“Very.”

I smile into my coffee.

“Harding will be here at 9:00 for pick up. I’m sorry I wasn’t, ah, very hospitable this morning.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

He turns around to smile at me.

I smile back.

“There is a pair of scissors hanging on a nail over there,” he gestures with his own pair, “if you want to deadhead the Peruvian lilies?”

I slide off the table.

“And the Peruvian lilies would be the…?”

“The orangey ones in the corner over here.”

“Oh. Pretty.”

I leave my mug of freeze-dried coffee behind and start to snip away wilted blooms. I look over at Solas, dirt already caked on to the back of his hands and under his fingernails.

“Doesn’t it make you kind of sad?”

“Doesn’t what make me kind of sad?”

“Chopping away the dead flowers.”

He shrugs.

“Nobody wants a dead flower.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

We’re quiet for a few moments, Solas focusing on gathering cut flowers, me focusing on pruning away the dead ones.

“They’re native to South America,” he says, breaking the silence.

“What are?”

“The Peruvian lilies.”

“Oh.”

I look down at the orange and red blossoms.

“I’ve never been to South America. I’ve never even left the state.”

“No?”

“No – the big move for me was to small town from smaller town.” I shrug. “I’ve always meant to travel. I guess I’ve just never really gotten around to it, or had enough money. What about you?”

Solas pushes the pot of flowers he had been working with toward the back of the table, and pulls another one in front of him.

“I did some traveling. Here and there. I was fortunate enough to go to Peru myself a few years ago.”

“Wait, really?” I stop searching for bruised or beaten petals and turn to Solas. “What were you doing there?”

“About five years ago I decided I wanted to travel the world, and so I did. I hitchhiked a lot of it, or worked odd-jobs here and there to help pay for buses and plane tickets.”

“Seriously?”

Solas laughs, and looks at me.

“Seriously.”

“That’s just. That’s really cool. Leliana always talks about traveling around Europe back when she lived in France – I guess it’s easier when everything is so close by and plane tickets are like, dirt cheap over there. Cassandra said she might send me to a tattoo expo in New York in March, and I’m embarrassingly excited about getting the chance to go.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I’ve always had kind of a travelling bug, but never really knew where to start. The closest I ever got to Peru was going to the chicken place across the street from – well, I guess you know about that. What’s your favorite part about traveling?”

“The people.”

“What about them?”

“The details.”

I raise my eyebrows.

“The details?”

He licks his lips and leans on the worktable.

“I saw a young girl in a village in Peru who worked in a simple kitchen, baking bread every morning. Money was tight, the bread was simple, all they could afford to bake and sell to make ends meet. But in every loaf she made she’d take a pinch of molasses and fold it in the center like it was a secret. She smiled through every loaf. Her own tiny act of charity.”

I put down my scissors.

“I enjoy being able to see how people put themselves together.”

“And how do you put _yourself_ together?”

He spreads his arms, gesturing to the greenhouse around us.

“I’m a florist.”

I can’t help but to laugh.

“Yeah, okay, sure you are.” I turn back to my lilies.

“I like plants. I always have. They’re my favorite detail.”

“And what do you like about plants?”

I snip off the head of a flower, and toss it into the trashcan.

“I like the language of flowers, what they mean. It’s subtle and nuanced.”

“So what do Peruvian lilies mean?”

He smiles.

“Devotion. A promise of loyalty.”

I feel my cheeks go red and I look down at my hands.

“And freesia?”

I think about the small bundle I found in the canvas bag he had lent me, and now I wonder if it had been on purpose.

“Friendship. Innocence.”

“Oh.”

A car horn honks from the direction of the house.

“And that means that Harding is here.”

Solas gathers a bundle of cut flowers into his arms and heads out the door of the greenhouse with a smirk.

-

Scout Harding is a piece of work. And I love her immediately. She’s at most five-foot even, has a face full of freckles, and she’s strong muscling Solas like I never would have imagined possible.

“You’re gone for three days and you don’t even call? What am I supposed to do with a locked shop, Solas?”

Solas is piling plants into the back of the truck, laughing all the while.

“I know Scout, I know – I said I was sorry.”

“That rose order guy? He’s pissed. You owe me for this one, pal.”

Solas puts his hands up as a show of innocence before climbing into the back of the truck.

“So,” I say. “Scout is an unusual name.”

“Yeah, my parents were big fans of _To Kill a Mocking Bird_.”

“Her real name is Lace,” Solas whispers as he passes by me back into the greenhouse.

“Hey, that’s enough out of you Disappearing Act.”

She looks down at my feet.

“You got a decent pair of shoes? It’s pretty cold out here.”

“Ah, not exactly.”

“Well get in the truck, then. It’s warm there at least.”

“Got room for a bike?”

“I got enough room enough for the Russian circus.”

“I’ll be right back.”

I head back into Solas’ house, the screen door slamming behind me as I make my way through his kitchen and back upstairs to his room to grab my things. I take one last look at the painting on the center of the wall.

When I head back down the stairs, Solas is waiting for me next to the front door.

“Man, Harding is a real piece of w—“

Before I can finish my sentence, Solas has pulled me into him, covering my mouth with his own. I immediately drop everything I had been holding and wrap my arms around his waist, curling up around his shoulders, my breaths short and erratic.

I don’t know if he pulls and I push, but somehow he ends up flush against the door. Our kisses are rushed and sloppy, and once or twice I feel his teeth graze against my own, but I don’t mind.

He laughs against my mouth. His breath is hot and he tastes like honey.

“I didn’t want you to think I had forgotten,” he says, and opens the door without looking.

I quickly pick up all my things from the ground and try and straighten my hair at the same time, my heart beating in my throat, my legs a little shaky.

“I’ll get your bike,” he says, and he’s out the door.

_God he’s good at that._

I make my way down the porch and slide into the truck next to Harding, my things piled in my lap.

“Were you guys at a party or something?” She asks, eyeing my shoes.

“Oh, no, we weren’t—“

“Alright Scout, that’s everything,” says Solas, piling into the truck next to me. He closes the door and puts his seatbelt on. His hand settles on his thigh, and the three of us are squished in close enough that his pinky finger is against my knee.

I swear to god I can feel the weight of that pinky finger more than anything I have ever felt throughout the course of my entire life.

Harding turns the ignition, and I’m staring down at Solas’s hand.

As we turn onto the main road, I lean into Solas a little harder than I’d like, and when we right ourselves, his hand settles on my knee.

All I can do is stare out at the road, trying to force down a smile, feeling my cheeks start to burn up to the tips of my ears.

 _Play it fucking cool, Ellana, for the love of god_.

I can’t look at anything or else my face might explode.

“Just let me know where to drop you off.”

“Yup! Yes. What? Here is good! That’s my building.”

I point to the corner of my block, and Harding pulls over. Solas opens the door and slides out, and he helps me out of the truck. When my feet hit the ground, his hands briefly find my waist, and I feel the slightest pressure from his fingers.

He leans in close enough that our noses almost touch, and I think he might kiss me.

“Maybe you should read that letter,” he says with a smile, and then climbs back into the truck.

I watch the truck drive off with an open mouth, and then scramble to get Solas’ letter from my purse. I rip it from the envelope and unfold it.

His handwriting runs together more than usual, probably from fatigue, but it is still steady and legible.

_I could hardly abandon you now. My heart and my home are here._

_I will see you tomorrow._

_S_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!!!! it feels so good to be back with these goons(:
> 
> i like that when solas is happy you get to see the trickster side of him come out. that sly bastard is always one step ahead.
> 
> see you soon!!! xoxo


	17. Chapter 17

“Oh my god, you slept over?”

“Leliana, shh!”

I bat her with a tea towel from across the counter and look around to make sure no customers are nearby. She makes wide eyes at me, and I give a pointed look toward her laptop and point upwards. She gets my very covert message, and turns the volume of the music up. She leans onto the counter top and quietly  _tsks_ at me.

“You leave _me_ with Cullen and run straight to another man’s arms. I see how it is.”

“Okay, that’s _not_ how it is.”

“And how is it?”

“It’s -- we didn’t – we didn’t have sex. We just… slept.”

“Oh. How quaint.”

She’s a little disappointed, I can tell. Not in my sex life (or lack thereof), but in not getting a juicy story out of it.

“We sort of held hands.”

She blinks.

“And then I helped him cut flowers.”

“Oh my god.”

“I know.”

“Ellana, oh my _god._ ”

I put my head in my hands and groan.

“I know.”

“You are a goner.”

“I knowww.”

I feel someone approaching on my left side, and peek out from behind my hands to see a student-aged kid sidling up to the register.

“Hello, sorry to interrupt, but could I get a soy hot chocolate to have in, please?”

“ _D’accord_ , of course, absolutely.”

Leliana flits away to retrieve the carton of soy milk from the fridge. I slide over on the counter to make room for the kid – small, blond, thin as a rail and he’s got an absolute death-grip on the strap of his backpack.

“You alright?” I ask after a few seconds.

“Mid-terms,” he says, picking at the course wood grain on the countertop.

“Already?”

He shrugs.

“It’s... sort of a portfolio.”

“Oh. Of what?”

“Poetry.”

Fast as lightning, Leliana sets a mug of hot chocolate down in front of him -- a small bird expertly and elegantly stenciled on the foam out of cocoa.

“No charge,” she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

The kid looks at her helplessly.

“Are—are you sure?”

“Positive. Just tell all your friends to come here and study, too.”

He looks down at the wad of cash he was going to use to pay, and instead shoves it into the tip jar before scooping up his mug and settling down at a corner table.

“God, I’m glad I never went to college,” I say looking after him.

Leliana shrugs, starting to wipe down the counter.

“You never know.”

“Yeah, but I have a tendency to either take things too seriously or not seriously enough, and I feel like college would have been more of the latter. Mid-terms,” I give a dry laugh. “No thank you.”

“Yes, well, because sleeping in until noon, making little to no money while yearning for a superior’s approval on your work, and making out with impossibly hot strangers is _so_ not up your alley.”

“Point. But _you_ had a great time in college.”

She shrugs.

“Subjective, Ellana. Perhaps these are rose-tinted glasses I am wearing. You could always ask Josie what being eighteen was like with me.”

“It couldn’t have been all terrible. You met Ana.”

Leliana runs her tongue along her teeth and folds her arms.

“I know.”

I pick at the wood grain on the counter, and when I look back up at Leliana, she’s looking past me at something I can’t see and smiling.

“Did I ever tell you that we met because the Christian Union president punched me in the face?”

“Wait, _what_?”

“Well, this was after I had punched him.”

“Oh my god, Leliana, back up please.”

“The undergraduate CU president was preaching in the quad about how homosexuality was the root of all evil, and I felt like I had a rebuttal to offer him.”

“With your _fist_? Leliana, I thought you were a pacifist.”

“Probably more emphasis on the _fist_ when I was younger. This was from before I had decided I did not want to finish my master’s degree, so I had… a lot of pent up stress.”

“Okay, fine. So then what happened?”

“Hold on for just a moment – an espresso for you, Max?”

A guy at the door is taking off his hat and waves an agreement to Leliana. She pulls a small espresso mug from a stack behind her and talks to me while she works.

“She told me I was crazy, and took me back to her apartment to ice my jaw. It was sweet of her. She thought I had a concussion or was delusional when I told her that no one studying biochem could be as pretty as she was.”

“That’s literally only a story that could happen to you.”

Leliana laughs.

“How… how is she?”

“She’s in San Miguel de Allende now. Guanajuato.”

The Spanish words sound clunky coming from her, like they’re too big for her mouth. 

“She says she’ll be back soon, but she doesn’t know when. I trust her. She’s never gone for too long.”

She pauses, then pulls the espresso cup from the machine, and sets it on the counter.

“I have your espresso here, Max.” She turns back to me. “Anyway, just promise me you will be careful with Solas. Something about him feels… sharp. Like he’s got thorns.”

“Yes, well, maybe if you tried to be nice to him he’d be a little warmer.”

“Mmm, no, it is not like that,” she says. “It is more like…”

She makes a few half thought out hand gestures, and then finally just sighs and drops her hands.

“Yeah,” I say. “Tell me about it.”

-

I’m peeling off my gloves, and watching a dainty brunette skipping her way out of the shop and down the street.

“Varric, promise me. Promise me that that is the last one. I swear to god, I thought infinity symbols had gone out of style like, two years ago.”

Varric shrugs and pulls out my binder, flipping to October.

“What the customer wants, the customer gets. Maybe it means something else to her. You don’t know. You’ll get more interesting stuff the more time you spend behind the machine. Pretty soon you’ll be begging for something that small.”

He passes me the pen to sign my name and I suck on my teeth.

“Can’t we talk people out of bad ideas in a consult? Why is there no compromise option?”

He laughs.

“If they’re of sound mind, who are we to try and tame the winds of fate?”

I lean back in my chair and flex my hands a couple of times to relieve it of any stiffness. I watch the folds of my palm contract and release, and I think about Solas’ letter.

_Now or never._

“Hey, Varric,” I say. “Speaking of the winds of fate, any chance I can snag that box of letters from the safe in the back?”

Varric eyes me up and down, and I make a point of being as casual as possible.

_Maybe if you lean back a few more inches in the chair, you’ll seem more casual._

I try it, but the back of the chair gives a bit more than I’d expected and with a yelp I catch myself before I’m about to fall.

“Please do not kill yourself on my time, Ellana,” Cass says calmly from the back of the shop behind a client’s shoulder.

I smile and wave.

“I’m good!”

Varric looks at me for a few beats before standing up.

“You’re just a lawsuit waiting to happen, Beansprout. Let me get your damn box.”

Varric heads into the back office, and returns a few minutes later with a Converse shoebox, a thick rubber band wrapped around it to keep it closed.

“Here’s this year’s box,” he says, holding it out to me. “You sure about this?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m just gonna take it to the trash heap. Don’t worry about it.”

“Hmm,” he grunts. “Beansprout, you know I’m all about ignoring one’s flesh and blood, but maybe you should think about this one.”

I take the box from his hands.

“And how is Bartrand?”

Varric pulls back just an inch, and I regret asking almost instantly.

“He’s got good care. Thanks for asking.”

He signs his name next to mine on the worksheet, folds the binder back up and heads back to his workstation without a word.

I kick myself in the head and look down at the box in my hands, pulling at the rubber band.

“Need me for anything else today, Cass?” I call to Cassandra, who looks up at me just long enough to shake her head and wave me away.

“We might go beer tasting at the Oktoberfest thing tonight, if you’re interested. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Thanks, yeah, I’ll see if I can come. I might have other plans. Send me a text or something?”

I grab my coat from the back of my chair and look over at Varric, who has pulled out his sketchbook and some pens. On top of his desk, in this garish red frame, is a picture of Varric and his brother from almost ten years ago – before Bartrand was sick and when the two of them got along. Not to say that they seem to get along now. It’s the only thing he has on his desk that isn’t tattoo-related, so that must mean something.

Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.

I take one last look at Varric before shrugging my coat on, grabbing my backpack, and heading across the street.

_

Standing in front of Solas’ shop now, I find myself struggling to believe that it was this _morning_ that I woke up in his bed. That it was _last night_ he came back.

I hug the shoebox to my chest, and pull the door open. The sound of the bell over the door makes me smile. I can’t help it.

Solas is talking to a customer, but I see he eyes flit over top the woman’s head and when his gaze meets mine, I catch a smile out of the corner of his mouth. He’s still talking to her, but that smile is mine.

He’s returned to his button downs and bow-ties.

Hugging the box close to my chest, I walk around the cut flower displays while he talks shop. It sounds like she’s ordering a large series of arrangements.

I thumb the rubber band around the box a few times, like it’s my very own one-string banjo.

The Peruvian lilies are in the corner near the window, and I run my fingers over a few of the petals. They’re soft, and leave a faintly yellow residue on the pads of my fingers.

I can hear Solas and the woman start to wrap up their conversation, and he gives her a card for the shop. She thanks him, and the tinkling of a bell signals her departure. Then it’s quiet, save for the quiet hum of the humidifier. 

I turn to look at Solas, who is leaning against a display table, an orchid peeking out from behind his shoulder.

 “Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” I say, mirroring his tone.

“What’s in the box?” He points to the shoebox. I shake it around a few times for effect, to show that it’s full.

“Well,” I begin, “I was just wondering if you were interested in a romantic evening of opening letters from my incarcerated mother. Or is that more like second date material?’

He laughs openly. A chest laugh. I smile.

He wipes his face with his hand.

“Are you sure you would want me with you while you do that?”

I shake my head from side to side, like I’m considering it.

“That’s what I’ve decided -- I don’t want it to feel like a big moment. Or like I’m solving some mystery about my mom. This isn’t _Serial_ , it’s just some letters from some woman I hardly know.” I look down at the box. “I’d rather have it be as low-pressure as possible. We could watch a movie? Have a bottle of wine, maybe?”

I shake the box again, this time pretending I’m Vanna White, and he smiles.

“It’s such an enticing offer, how could I say no?”

I’m grinning from ear-to-ear.

“Great! It’s a weird date, then. I have Cassandra’s Netflix password – what’s your favorite movie? Or like, TV show?”

He laughs and looks away, but I can tell that the tips of his ears have gone a little pink. Redheads always go pink faster than regular people.

“Wait, oh my god, Solas, what’s your favorite movie?”

“Ah,” he starts, and reaches to scratch the back of his neck.

“TV show?”

“I don’t watch a lot of television,” he says, but I’m not having it.

“Wait a minute -- suave Solas is embarrassed by something?”

“I ah, I really like Antiques Roadshow.”

I almost drop the box.

“Oh my god.”

“I like to try and guess what things are worth before the appraisers can!”

I feel a giggle start in the very bottom of my belly, and it slowly takes over – I’m laughing so hard I have to use a table to steady myself, and Solas just looks red in the face and like he doesn’t quite know what to do with his hands.

“And are you ever right?” I ask, clutching my sides, the shoebox almost slipping from my grasp.

“No!”

I laugh even harder, and he even starts to laugh.

“Wait – why—why are _you_ laughing?”

“Because you’re laughing!”

“Solas, that is without a doubt the cutest thing I have ever heard,” I say, once I have enough breath to say it.

He grins and reaches a hand out, sliding his index finger into a belt loop and gently pulls me close to him. I don’t object. With his finger still hooked into the denim, his thumb extends upward underneath the hem of my shirt to press against the hollow of my hip. My breath catches, and I can feel my heart start to beat a little faster.

Damn him.

He always manages to throw me for a loop.

“I’m locking up in ten minutes,” he says.

“And, um, in those ten minutes?”

I look up at him, his lips slightly chapped from the cold, his cheekbones sharp in the florescent light, the scar above his eyebrow – and for the first time, I notice a smaller scar there.

“Solas,” I say, the shoebox starting to get crushed between his torso and mine, the cardboard warm beneath my palm. “Did you have an eyebrow ring?”

He snorts.

“We can put that on my growing list of bad decisions.”

I grin, and rock myself forward and up on my toes to close the space between us, kissing him once and softly on the lips.

“Since my apartment is an utter mess,” I say sweetly, “for the love of god give me time to clean it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyone else feel like they're walking on eggshells with these two?? things seem to be going well.....
> 
> ALSO while i have you here have you SEEN [this beautiful WATERCOLOR](http://watercolorteas.tumblr.com/post/112530149303/favorite-solavellan-fanfic-at-the-moment) that tumblr user watercolorteas did of this fic??? i have already written her into my will it is so beautiful i can't even stand it
> 
> thank you so much for reading & commenting & everything!!!! i love each and every one of you xx


	18. Chapter 18

I wasn’t lying when I told Solas that my apartment was a mess. I think I had a momentary lapse in judgment when I asked for time to clean it, since it's practically a disaster zone of nuclear proportions and may actually take longer to clean than it's taking to de-radiate Marie Curie's place or whatever they're doing there. My sofa is covered in books and papers and half-finished sketchbooks, there’s a laundry basket full of clean laundry sitting on my desk chair, and my desk is covered (again) in an embarrassing amount of coffee mugs and plates.

When I get home I make fast work of the dishes, and grab stacks of books and papers and shove them under my desk, but I leave the laundry in the basket. After I pull my covers up over my pillows so I can avoid actually changing the sheets, I put the basket on the foot of the bed to make it seem like I was about to put it away (it’s a week old but whatever I’ll get around to it. Honest.)

I shove the rest of my strewn-about wardrobe into a hamper, and already it looks that much more inviting. Sort of.

With my hands on my hips I survey the place. It’s no restored farmhouse, but it’s got charm. That vaguely lived-in charm. That vaguely “I’ve never given this apartment a proper clean in its life what were you thinking inviting him over” kind of charm. 

_God damn it._

I bite my lip and I pull out my phone.

                                          uh okay so like }–

                                  what’s your eta here }–

                            how ambitious can I get }–

I keep a vice grip on my phone and run over to the kitchen to give the counters a quick wipe down with a washcloth, bringing up an admirable amount of coffee grounds and stains. A few moments later it buzzes in my hand.

–{ I’m actually outside your building now.

 _Fuck_.

Then not even a full second later --

    Do you want me to walk around the

 –{ block to bide you some time?

I make a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh, and bring my phone to my forehead, hitting it square between my eyebrows a couple of times.

"Auggggh."

                                 no no don't be an idiot }–

                                                   live & learn }-

                                             I’ll buzz you in }–

I cross over to the door and press the small button on the intercom, and I can hear him opening the door to the building at the bottom of the stairwell.

Suddenly I feel a lot less sure of myself.

Sure, it was fine when he was coming over _in theory_ and when I was busying myself cleaning the apartment, but now?

There’s a knock at the door.

I pull a hair tie from my wrist and put my hair up.

In my walk to the door I take it down again.

When I answer the door, I’m in the middle of putting it back up again.

“Hi,” he says, with a relaxed grin.

“Hi,” I say back, and I can feel my shoulders let go of any tension, a smile creeping its way onto my face. “Welcome to _Chateau Lavellan_.”

I pull the door open and gesture broadly with my free arm for him to enter.

He crosses the threshold and when he walks past me, it’s there again – the faint smell of sandalwood and pipe smoke.

“I brought the wine,” he turns back to me, holding up two bottles in each hand. “I didn’t know if you were a red or a white person.”

“I’m a whatever-is-cheapest-on-the-shelf person,” I say, locking the door.

“A true connoisseur.”

“I’ve even passed my somm test.”

“Have you really?”

“No, but I saw the movie. I can make some words up for you if you want.” I grab a bottle from his hand. “Ah, yes, this one will give us a true floral undertone and hints of bark. A very woody bouquet. Triangular currant. Truly the finest wine of its vintage.”

He laughs, and hands me the other bottle.

I make a noise of mock-appraisal.

“A real palette-brightener, this one. Really wakes up the senses.”

I set both onto the coffee table and go to grab some wine glasses. When I turn back around, Solas is standing at my desk and flipping through my sketchbook.

“Woah, hey hey hey, no – that’s… that’s private,” I say, bounding over to my desk, trying to get between him and the pages, my hand against his chest pushing him back. The wine glasses I’m carrying make it difficult.

He looks sheepish.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I just… I wanted to know how the watercolors were treating you. I never got a chance to see.”

“Oh,” I say, my hand still against his chest, the rim of a wine glass just beneath his collar. He doesn’t move back, the space between us now ranging from minimal to nonexistent. I’m practically sitting on the desk, one of my legs between his own.

“But I understand. One’s art is one’s own.”

Even though his tone is conversational, this exchange suddenly feels intimate.

“Maybe… later?” I say, my face warm. I can’t stop looking at his mouth, the cleft in his chin.

“Maybe later,” he agrees.

“So,” I breathe, watching my breath fog up the wine glass pressed up against his chest.

“You should know,” he says leaning in close, “that Antiques Roadshow isn’t on Netflix. There is, however, a YouTube channel that posts them. They also do Jeopardy.”

“Jeopardy?”

“Jeopardy is a great show.”

“I’m sure you know all the answers.”

“I promise you that I do not.”

“Well, we’ll just have to see then,” I say, sliding myself out from between Solas and my desk.

_What is wrong with you? Confident enough to kiss him in his shop, but not in your own apartment?_

I set the wine glasses down on the coffee table, grab my computer from the couch and plug it into the HDMI cord attached to my television. I can hear Solas pouring wine into glasses behind me.

“So, these letters,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“About how many of them are there?”

I shrug.

“A lot, probably. A couple shoeboxes worth.”

“Has she always written them?”

I shake my head.

“I think for a while she thought I was going to visit or take her calls. But she was in and out of jail when I was really little, so I didn’t really know her or _want_ to know her. And… I was angry a lot as a kid, so some homes didn’t know how to handle me and I had that going on. I’m better now. Mostly. It’s kind of ironic, I think, that when my mom finally got sent permanently upstate, I did too. Just at a different place.” I lean back and grab a glass of wine from the coffee table. He poured the red. “Sorry, is this too much information?”

“No,” Solas says. “I asked.”

He looks comfortable on my couch.

I like that.  

“What’s the YouTube channel?”

He tells me, and I type it into the search box.

“I went to visit her once, when I was eighteen or nineteen. I had just gotten my chest-piece done, I remember. I went with my mom – Dana, not my birth mom, obviously. It… didn’t go very well.”

I take a sip of wine.

“Anyway, I think my uncle told her where I was a few years later, and then she started writing.” I look back at him. “Not my real uncle, just to be clear. A neighbor. Decent guy. Real uncle material. Also, do we want to watch the UK or the US version?”

“UK. No contest.”

“Oooh, they have the Christmas special.”

The theme music starts playing – a very cheerful trumpet and some violins – and I pull a face at Solas almost immediately.

“Oh my god you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“It’s the greatest show on television,” Solas declares.

“Alright. Well. That’s an argument for another day.”

I scoop up the shoebox from the coffee table and settle onto the couch next to Solas, tucking my legs under myself. My knees graze the side of his thighs.

The theme music fades to a female presenter letting us know that all the antiques for this episode will be "festive."

I thumb off the rubber band a flip the box open.

“So, do you think, like, should I go chronologically? Should I try and find the first ones? Or maybe I can just open the most recent one and work my way back.”

I take another sip from my wine glass.

“Or maybe I should just go in blind. Open them at random.”

I sift through the pile of white envelopes, some of them stuffed to bursting, some of them folded or crumpled. All of them have scotch tape holding them together from where the prison censor opens the mail before sending it out for official collection.

I notice that instead of her name for the return address, it’s just a series of numbers.

I wonder if she’s forgotten what it’s like to have someone call her by name.

“Ellana.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have to do this now.”

I take another sip of wine. It’s maybe more like a gulp. A woman on Antiques Roadshow has brought in a very old train ticket. It’s apparently very rare and worth at least a thousand pounds. Good for her.

“No, I’m good. I can open at least one.”

I think he goes to reach for my hand, but he settles on his own knee instead.

“ _I never would have thought that if I held onto this train memorabilia_ …,” the T.V. says while I pull the topmost envelope from the box.

“How much do you think that one’s worth at auction?” I ask.

“No more than 700 pounds,” Solas says, completely relaxed.  

“You want to put money on that?”

“Definitely not.”

I slide my finger underneath the scotch tape, peeling it back.

“ _Twelve-thousand pounds?!_ ”

“Great guess,” I snort, and pull the letter from the envelope.

I don’t unfold it yet. I’m being very calm.

Solas gestures to the television with his wine glass.

“Yes, but they never get what the appraiser thinks they will at auction.”

“I don’t think there’s going to be an eleven-thousand pound difference, Solas.”

He huffs.

I unfold the letter.

I take a sip of wine.

I start to read it.

“This is weird,” I say, and I see Solas look over at me. He doesn’t move (he’s being very casual) but he does look.

“Mmm?”

“This is just so weird.”

“What is?”

“She doesn’t address me by name. There’s nothing even about me really – oh wait, no, she hopes I’m doing well. She wants to know if I still have my barbaric tattoos. Rich, coming from her, really.”

Solas chuckles into his glass.

“But it feels more like a diary entry than anything else. She just jumps right in – what’s happening in the cafeteria, her cellmates…”

Solas lifts his eyebrow.

“Anything interesting?”

“I couldn’t say. It doesn’t make any sense to –“

 _Huh_.

“What?”

“Hold on.”

I reread the last few sentences.

And then I read them again.

Then I read them out loud.

“’ _The date has been set. I’m still negotiating with Thomas about his statement, but I am confident he’s going to recant and work in a character witness. I don’t know if you are even reading these letters since you never deign to reply, but it would mean the world to me to see your face in the crowd.’_ ”

“Do you know who Thomas is?”

“Uh, the neighbor,” I say, staring down at the letter.

“What does it mean to you?”

I take in a deep breath.

“I think it means we’re going to court.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!! let's go to court !!!! eventually !!!!
> 
> (thanks for readingxx)


	19. Chapter 19

Solas has straightened up against the sofa, shoulders square. He sets his wine glass down on the coffee table.

“To court? Ellana, do you think that is wise?”

I make a couple of noises, and end up helplessly gesturing to the letter.

“Ten minutes ago you didn’t care a whit about this woman.”

“You’re the one who told me to open the letters,” I say, and I can feel my brow crease, my shoulders pull inward.

“Yes, but,” he wipes a hand over his face. “For _you_ , Ellana. Not every bit of new knowledge requires immediate action.”

“I feel like I’m on a good trajectory though,” I say. “Maybe if I could just see her—“

“Ellana, it is not like court is a fine place for a reunion—“

“I know, but—“

“Maybe you should sleep on this.”

I purse my lips.

“Since when are you an expert on good decisions and legal proceedings?”

He opens his mouth and then shuts it again.

_Good one, Ellana._

“When is her court date?” He asks, his tone much more level, quieter.

I look back down at the letter.

“Uh, she says it’s three months away here, but this letter isn’t the most recent one… Oh wait, here’s an actual date. Huh. Three weeks from Monday.”

“And you want to go?”

I shrug.

“I don’t know. I guess so? Now that I know she’s going and she wants me there – I don’t know. It would feel rude for me not to go.”

“How polite of you.”

The episode of Antiques Roadshow has ended, and the theme music is playing again. It’s inappropriately cheery.

“Just do me a favor and talk to someone about it.”

“I am talking to someone about it.”

“Maybe,” he looks over at his wine glass. “Maybe I am not the best person to talk to.”

My palms are kind of sweaty. The letter feels hot in my hand. I hope I don’t smudge the pencil.

“Look, a mother is supposed to protect you. And she did a pretty shitty job at it, I get it. She disappeared when she wasn’t supposed to disappear and I don’t want to go and have some Kodak moment. I just want to see her. In an objective setting where she can’t judge me and I can’t judge her.”

I pause.

“Except that I guess there will be some judging. But from a judge. I guess. I don’t know. Most of my legal knowledge came from watching _Judge Judy_ when I was home sick from school as a kid and what I picked up from social workers so I’m not the person to turn to here, either.”

“What about Dr. Montilyet?”

“What about her?”

“Isn’t she a lawyer?”

_Oh. Right._

“Good point.”

Solas reaches for his wine glass again and settles down.

“I just worry about you.”

“I thought I was supposed to worry about you.”

He smiles, and there it is again – that melting feeling in my knees.

I set the letter on top of the shoebox on the coffee table and reach for the hand not holding his wine, which he’s balled into a fist on top of his knee. He immediately releases at my touch, fingers unfurling, his knuckles fading from bone-white.

“I’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry about this.”

He smiles wearily at our hands, turning his wrist so my fingers are on top of his palm. There are small, raw half-moon indents there from how tightly he’d held his fist. 

“Maybe just cap the letters at the one, then. Wait until you talk to Dr. Montilyet. Maybe you can read them with her.”

He looks over at me and sets his wine back on the coffee table after taking a sip.

“This is, however, merely my opinion.”

I smile.

“I’m glad you were here for this.”

“I did not do much.”

“Yeah, but…”

I push myself off my knees and lean forward to plant a small kiss on his cheek. I can feel his skin go warm against my lips. I linger there for a moment, and press my nose against the hollow beneath his ear.

“Thanks anyway.”

I go to pull away, but Solas has caught the nape of my neck with his right hand, his thumb against my jaw. He looks at me for a moment, searching my face for something I couldn’t name. And then he pulls me into him.

He kisses my slowly and softly. Quietly.

He curls his fingers against the back of my neck, catching my hair, and his other hand finds the side of my face. I’m left balancing myself against the arm and the back of the sofa, supporting my weight above him, but it’s lost in his lips moving against mine, and everything beginning to flow together, moving in a rhythm. His mouth opens and his tongue finds mine, again and again, tentatively. Playfully.

My breath catches when his finger trails at the hem of my shirt, drawing a line from my hip to my spine, tucking underneath and upwards until his palm lays flat against the small of my back. I moan into his mouth, my heartbeat quickening and I bring my right leg over his to straddle him. My hands are against his face, and I can’t stop kissing him.

Do I even want to? Why would I want to? And is that his phone in his pocket?

“Ellana—“

I move to his neck, trailing kisses down his throat until I reach his collarbone, pulling his shirt out of his way. I take a bit of skin between my teeth and run my tongue against it.

“Mmm?”

I slide my hands up his shirt – his skin is taut and smooth to the touch. I feel him shudder. And then he grabs my wrists, stopping them from wandering any further.

“I—I’m sitting on my house keys—“

I pull away.

“Oh, um—“

He rocks forward a bit, his hands on my hips, readjusting himself to pull his keys out of his back pocket.

“Sorry—“

“No, no, it’s—“

“It’s not that—“

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, of course.”

“We don’t have to—“

I suddenly feel very self-conscious to be sitting on top of him.

“Solas, if you don’t want to—“

And then, as if we were in a movie, my phone rings.

It’s on vibrate, which is the clincher.

I very quickly roll myself off and away from the sofa, and pull my phone out of my pocket. It’s Leliana.

I look over at Solas, who manages to look as cool as a cucumber, if a bit red in the cheeks.

But then again, maybe that’s just the lights.

“Sorry, let me just – and then –“

I turn around and grimace at the front door before answering the phone.

“Yeah?”

“HELLO WHAT ARE YOU DOING RIGHT NOW?”

I hold the phone away from my ear.

“Oh my god, Leliana, why are you yelling?”

“BECAUSE IT IS LOUD HERE. I GOT CASSANDRA DRUNK AND WE’RE AT WAR. COME OUT WITH US!”

I turn to make an apologetic look at Solas, who waves me away.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says.

“ALSO MY CAR IS HERE AND I NEED A RIDE HOME EVENTUALLY.”

I close my eyes.

_For the love of—_

“ELLA?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here – I hear you. You need a ride. Isn’t – what about Cullen?”

“WHAT ABOUT CULLEN?”

“Can’t he drive you?”

“NO MY CAR WILL GET IMPOUNDED IF I LEAVE IT ALSO HE HAS HIS OWN CAR ALSO ALSO THE WAR IS BINGO.”

“Ah.”

I raise my eyebrows and I look at Solas. He smiles and shrugs.

“Okay.”

“REALLY?”

“Yeah, we’re on our way.”

“WAIT – WHAT DO YOU MEAN W—“

I hang up the phone before her line of questioning can begin.

“Alright. I guess we’re donning our lederhosen.”

-

The walk to the market square is pretty quiet. Normally I’m not too good with quiet, but I don’t really have much to say.

Is there a way to say, “I would like to be sexual with you, but you seem like maybe you’re not too down with that,” but like, in a suave and totally natural way? Because right now I don’t think there is.

When we get to the market square, I’m pretty astonished to see all they’ve done to transform it. It’s not just all the popup tents, but the combination of the crisp night air, people running around, the sounds of the carnival off on the soccer pitch, the smell of autumn.

There are signs for beer, for bratwurst, even for an apple bobbing tent. I feel like I’m in _Halloweentown_ , which as we all know is the superior Disney Channel original movie, so I’m feeling pretty good about this. (Side note: an argument can be made for _The Thirteenth Year_.)

“Wow,” I breathe when we round the corner. “I feel like I was just at the market – how do they put these things up so fast?”

Leliana finds me almost immediately because I’m fairly certain she’s put homing devices in all my shoes. She throws her arms around me.

“I didn’t know you were not _alone_ ,” she whispers against my ear, and I wrap my arms around her waist.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, twisting my neck to look over at Solas, who’s looking at prices for funnel cakes. “Nothing was really happening anyway.”

“What do you...“ She pulls back to look at me. “Ohhh.”

“No, no, not like that – I mean, yes like that but also not –“

“Did you two hold hands again?”

“Leliana,” I say, and even I’m surprised by how sharp I sound.

“Yikes, sorry.”

“Um, where’s everyone else?”

“Varric got everyone to play bingo in the bingo tent. We are rolling hard against a group of old ladies – they are quite competitive.”

“Wait, who’s everyone?”

But she’s already off.

“Oh, for the love of –“

I run back to Solas, funnel cake in hand.

I blink.

“You bought one of those?”

“It’s hardly a festival if you don’t eat funnel cake,” he says, entirely stony faced.

“I don’t even know when you’re joking anymore.”

“It’s tradition,” he says, pulling off a piece of cake from the funneled mass. “Have you never been to one of these?”

“Uh, when I was a kid. The Lavellans were really into this kind of stuff. I kind of lost interest when I got older.” I gesture in the direction of the bingo tent. “The gang is this way. They’re feeding into Varric’s casual gambling addiction.”

Solas pops the piece of funnel cake in his mouth, and then hands the small cardboard carrier over to me before heading off.

“Alright, let’s go.”

I look down at the funnel cake.

“Uh?”

I scramble after him.

“I’m not going to eat your funnel cake,” I say, walking next to him. “Festival food is gross.”

I swear, even though he’s only about a head taller than I am, Solas walks twice as fast.

“You should have some,“ he says. “It’s not a festival until you do. Also we should eat a bratwurst. Have a pint.”

I rip off a piece of the cake, the dough still hot and steaming, and pop it into my mouth.

“Alright grandpa, you didn’t even put powdered sugar on this thing,” I say, and Solas laughs.

“I thought festival food was gross?”

“Not if you can cover it in sugar.”

I pull a face at him before turning into the bingo tent. There, in the back corner, are Leliana, Cassandra, Varric, and Josephine. I can’t help but smile – they’re all huddled around their bingo cards and staring down a group of tiny old ladies two tables away.

“What are you guys strategizing about?”

“Listen, Beanspout,” Varric slams one hand on the table and points at me with the other. “Those old broads over there keep winning. They’ve got this rigged. I don’t know where they’re getting their sheets, but we sent Leliana over there to figure it out. She came back with a handful of their sheets for the next round, so we’re playing dirty here.”

Leliana looks around and pulls a wad of bingo sheets out from her back pocket.

“Leliana, how did you even—“

Leliana puts a finger to her lips and winks at me.

I shut up.

“Cullen suggested we rough them up a bit, but I think perhaps he was kidding,” says Josephine, leaning in close. “I think I recognize one of these women from my calligraphy class. I might have an advantage there if I can distract her. That would be one less player off the field.”

“Wait, where’s Cullen?”

“Isaak decided he’d had enough of bingo and went to go play Whack-A-Mole. The coward just wanted to hit stuff. He took some of our best men with him,” Cassandra slurs, clearly wounded by their betrayal. She looks down at the handful of sheets in front of her with fierce determination.

“The next round starts in a few minutes, Beansprout. It’s five dollars for six sheets. Are you in or are you out?”

I look over at Solas, who hasn’t said a word yet, eyebrows high.

“We’re in,” he says, and pulls a ten dollar bill out of his wallet with lightning speed, setting it on the table.

Varric snatches the tenner and heads over to the bingo coordinator. Solas and I sit down at the table, and Josephine reaches for my funnel cake. I slide it over to her.

“There’s no sugar on it,” I warn, but she waves the thought away and picks off a piece.

“Hey, Josie, what do you know about the process of appealing drug convictions?“ I try to ask as casually as possible.

“Mmm, it’s not exactly my expertise, but I have a few friends I could ask. Why?”

“Do you have something you want to tell us, Ella?” Leliana purrs, leaning into me.

“Alright you guys this is it – I can feel it in my bones,” Varric says, returning to hand Solas and me five bingo sheets each.

“I, uh, opened some letters from my mom.”

“Alright bingo stars, let’s get our sheets ready!”

“You did what?”

“Wait, where’s your mom?”

“Battle faces, everyone,” Cassandra warns.

“Uh, jail,” I say, reaching for a purple marker to blot my sheets.

“Huh,” Leliana says, nodding.

The announcer onstage starts turning what looks to be a small, spherical cage on a spit, and pulls out a ping-pong ball with some letters and numbers on it.

“G52!”

Everyone scrambles to look for the accompanying G52 on their sheets. Varric and Josephine each have one, and Solas quietly points out that there’s one on one of my sheets as well. Cassandra groans and throws one of her markers at the tent wall, which I take to mean she doesn’t have a G52.

“Anyway she’s trying to get one her key witnesses to recant, so she might get out of jail,” I say.  

“B112!”

“Oh my god they go fast, don’t they?”

“Keep on your toes here Beansprout,” Varric says, eyes scanning bingo sheets. “We have no room for lollygaggers.”

“Those old crones won’t know what hits them,” Cassandra spits, coloring in the B112 on her sheet with such ferocity the paper tears a bit.

“Anyway, Josie, it’s no big deal, but maybe you could help me learn some more about this case,” I say, leaning back. I don’t have a single B112.

“I’d love to help,” Josephine says, smiling at me.

“B84!”

We all quietly and intently shade in bingo tiles for a few minutes until finally,

“N7!”

“Bingo.”

Everyone turns to look at Solas, who is holding up a bingo sheet with a perfect diagonal line running across the page.

“That was quick,” I say.

“Say it louder, florist!” Cassandra barks, and I laugh because she’s definitely forgotten Solas’ name in between drinks four and five.

“Bingo,” Solas says again, a bit louder this time, and with his hand raised.

“And it looks like we have a bingo!”

The announcer waves Solas over, and so he takes his sheet and heads over to the stage. There is a huge commotion over at the seniors table.

“What’s the pot this round?” Cassandra asks Varric.

“Seventy-five,” Leliana says, then points over to the gaggle of old women. “Look, Gladys looks heartbroken. Good.”

“Ellana, if you want to pop over to my office sometime this week at the college, I’d love to look at what you have. We can talk then?”

I nod, and chew on a fingernail, staring after Solas.

“That sounds good, Josephine. Thanks.”

“It looks like we have a winner here, folks!”

The announcer holds up Solas’ hand, which Solas doesn’t look entirely thrilled about.

“Yes!” Cassandra cheers, and stands. Varric chuckles, and pulls out his phone as Solas makes his way back to our table, winnings in hand.

“Alright everyone – crowd in – this is group photo material, here.”

“Oh, Varric, really?" Cassandra tuts.

“Don’t you want this victory documented for all time, Cass?”

She sighs her defeat, and takes another swig from her plastic cup of beer.

“Fine.”

“Here, Varric, let me take the photo,” says Solas. “I’m not terribly photogenic.”

Varric shrugs and hands his phone over to Solas, who hands him his bingo sheet and his newfound cash.

“Your loss, Chuckles.”

We all huddle together, Josephine, Leliana and I leaning across the table to get our arms around Cassandra and Varric, who is exaggeratedly pointing to the winning bingo sheet with one hand, a fan of cash in the other.

He’s anything but subtle.

“Alright friends, let us end the night on this high note of ageist victory, yes?” Leliana says. “Are you good to go, Cass?”

“Varric drove,” she says, downing the rest of her beer.

“We’re fine, little bird,” says Varric. “And Chuckles, you can keep the cash. It’s all about the victory in here.”

He points to his heart, then takes Cassandra by the arm and heads out of the tent.

“I’ll see you winners tomorrow!” He calls over his shoulder.

“Mmm, are they married?” Solas asks me, staring after them, and I choke out a laugh.

“Oh my god, no.”

“They act like it.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“They don’t even date, they’re just attached at the hip,” Leliana says, struggling to get her jacket on. I point out that it’s upside down.

“Oh,” she laughs. “Thanks.”

She fixes her coat, and then thrusts her keys in my direction.

“Take me home, country roads.”

“Are Dorian and Isaak still with Cullen?”

“Yeah,” Leliana says. “I think he heard you were coming and ran with his tail between his legs.”

Solas gives me a look.

“Oh god, I hope that’s not what happened.”

She shrugs.

“Can we go now? We don’t need to stand here and dwell on each of our dysfunctional, sexless relationships. I have the both of you beat.”

I watch as she pokes Solas in the ribs with her elbow, and my face immediately goes as red as a tomato. I can feel it.

“OKAY, let’s go!” I grab Leliana by the hand, avoiding Solas entirely, and pull her in the direction of the parking lot.

“Leliana, you have _got_ to be kidding me,” I hiss, and she just laughs.

“Oh, as if you were going to say anything. I did you a favor. Now you have to have the conversation.”

“I would have had the conversation anyway.”

“Would you have?”

“Yeah, on _my_ time.”

“Your time? Also widely known as _never_?”

“You don’t need to take this out on the people around you,” I say when we near her car.

“Take _what_ out on the people around me?”

“Whatever is going on with you and Ana.”

Leliana freezes and purses her lips.

“This isn’t about that.”

I sigh and rub my face with my hands.

“No, I know –“

“If you have something to say to me about it, say it.”

“Things don’t always work out the way you want them to. And in some cases… people need a Plan B. I worry about you sometimes, Leliana.”

Solas, who had been a few paces behind us, catches up and stands at the passenger side door.

“Well, you don’t have to. God, I am not drunk enough for this.”

She scowls at me, opens the door, and gets into the backseat of the car.

Solas looks at me, but I shrug it off.

“It’s no big,” I say, and slide into the driver’s side. When I turn the ignition, some French singer/songwriter croons from the speakers. I leave it on as I drive Leliana to her apartment.

No one says anything. Solas and Leliana both just stare out the windows for the whole drive, leaving me to ruminate on my poor conversation skills.

“I’ll bring the car to Nightingale tomorrow, okay?” I say when I pull up to the curb.

“Yeah,” she says, climbing out of the car. “Okay.”

“Ugh,” I lean back against the seat, watching Leliana open the door to her building before driving off. “Do you want me to drive you back to your place?” I ask Solas. “I totally understand if you just want to go back to your place.”

Solas laughs.

“Yes, but you wouldn’t be there.”

“Oh – oh, I mean, I could be there if you wanted? I just figured that with Leliana kind of opening her mouth, maybe I’d go bury my head in the sand. Or something.”

“Is that what you want?”

“No,” I say, turning onto the High street.

“What _do_ you want?”

“Uh,” I laugh, and pull up to the stop sign at the end of the road. To the right, Solas’ house. To the left, mine.

“I just think,” Solas says, picking a pill from his sweater. “That it would be a shame to waste those bottles of wine.”

I smile to myself, and turn left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey!!! raise your hand if you thought you were never going to hear from me or these goons ever again!! PHEW what a couple of weeks you guys!!! (I got into GRADUATE SCHOOL and now I have to figure out how to pay for it??? #UGH) I said I'd finish this fic if it killed me and I'm GONNA. just maybe not with the same speed as the first half now that I have to WORK all the time or whatever. 
> 
> anyway -- are you bored waiting for an update? play the FLOWER/INK DRINKING GAME WITH URSELF & A PAL:
> 
> DRINK IF:   
> -Ellana blushes!  
> -Ellana says something she shouldn't have!  
> -Solas ~~alludes to his past~~!  
> -Leliana is drunk!  
> -Varric uses a nickname!  
> -Cassandra tuts!  
> -There's a DA cameo!  
> -There's a non-DA pop cultural reference!  
> -Someone "smiles at the ground/their hands/something that isn't a person"!  
> -Something is technically inaccurate re: tattooing, flowers, general facts of life!
> 
> have more rules to add? let me know in the comments & i'll add them to the rules OKAY BYE Y'ALL LOVE U


	20. Chapter 20

I unlock my front door, and make a beeline for my half a glass of wine still on the coffee table. For some reason instead of just standing still (you know, like a normal person) I decide to pick it up carry it into the kitchen, the bottle in my other hand. I can hear Solas’ softer footsteps on the area rug in front of the door, and the soft click of the lock as he closes the door behind him.

“Listen,” I say, topping off my wine ( _sure, why not_ ). “About what Leliana said –“

“Which part?” Solas asks, scooping up his own glass from the coffee table, cradling it in his right hand. His fingers are long and thin. He is still and he holds a wine glass like people do in the movies.

I’m staring again.

“The part where she refused to acknowledge her own relationship woes, or the part where she insinuated that our relationship was sexless?”

I almost choke on my wine.

“Oh, you heard that too?”

Am I laughing or am I coughing?

Solas laughs, softly, looking into his wine glass. He’s swirling the liquid around, a tiny hurricane in his hands.

“Ah, I’ve been thinking of getting a cat,” I stammer.

Solas pulls a face.

“Oh, you don’t want to get a cat.”

“Not a cat fan? You and Leliana both, then.”

“I’m allergic,” he says, standing up, making his way over to me.

“Allergic,” I nod. I nod a little bit too much. He sets a hand on one side of my face to stop my nervous tic, then leans against the countertop next to me.

“It’s been a long time.”

“Since you found out you were allergic?”

“No. Since I’ve been with anyone.”

“Oh.”

He takes a sip from his glass, but I think it’s more out of a desire to do something with his hands than anything else.

“Do you mean… romantically or like…” I trail off. “God, I hate this.”

Instead of finishing my sentence, I settle for a gulp of wine.

“Both, I suppose.” Solas shrugs. “Admittedly, relationships, friendships, sex – other people at all, in a way – haven’t exactly been on my radar for a while.”

“God, Solas, what does that even mean?”

“Pardon?”

I turn to look at him, resting my elbow on the counter.

“Where have you been? I – I understand that your past is your own. I get that. And what happened with Sophie – that’s yours. But god, I feel like I’m walking a tightrope with you sometimes.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. He doesn’t look at me. Instead, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet and hands it to me.

“I really shouldn’t keep this on me. Sentimental, I guess.”

Brow creased, I open it. The corners are worn.

In the small plastic ID slot, is Solas’ driver’s license. His hair is parted on the left, his shirt buttoned all the way to the top, he doesn’t smile. Solas Freeman. Height, 5’11”. Eyes, blue.

_Grey_ , I think.

“In the billfold,” he says.

I open the main fold of the wallet. There’s a few business cards held together by a paperclip, and Solas’ newly won bingo cash. Tucked in between the notes is another ID.

“Felix Helwyr.”

He over pronounces the consonants. Sharp.

The person in the photo on this ID – another state, another name --

“FH,” I laugh (it’s a hard laugh. Empty.) and shake my head. “Jesus Christ, Solas.”

“I want you to know, Ellana, I’m not that person anymore.”

“You were clearly this person for long enough.”

I finish my glass of wine and I set (slam?) the wallet and the ID on the countertop. The kid with the top knot and the dark eyes stares up at me from the linoleum.

I pour another glass of wine and Solas is quiet.

 “It’s Welsh,” he says after a minute.

“I figured with all the consonants.”

“My mother was French.”

“Mmm.”

“I understand if this isn’t quite what you had in mind.”

A couple of responses to that play in my head. _What exactly was it that I had in mind? What do you expect from me here?  Who are you?_

Neither of us look at each other. I am staring straight ahead at my bed on the far end of the room. The headboard was hand carved at the farm and you can see the indents and the grooves hand in hand with nicks from the knife tracing my sister’s hand. I think about how Solas uses the past tense a lot. Each ‘ _was_ ’ and ‘ _had been_ ’ and ‘ _not anymore_ ’ – they feel lonely and abrupt. Uprooted.

“What do I call you?”

Out of the corner of my eye I can see Solas snap his head up and look over at me.

“Do I call you Solas or Felix? I have to say, I’m used to Solas but partial to Felix. One is a real person’s name and the other sounds like somebody just made it u—“

And that is when he kisses me. He kisses me and there is no build this time – it is sharp, it is focused, and there is a fire behind it from everything we had left unsaid. It’s the kiss of a man who has just told a secret.

I fumble to set my wine glass behind me and my mouth opens under his and I can taste funnel cake and wine from the corner of his lips. He cups my face with one hand, his fingers twining in my hair, and his other hand finds my waist. He pulls me into him. Hard. I swear I hear him growl, and I gasp a little, which I think he enjoys, and he goes in for my neck – the spot just under my ears. He presses his mouth against my skin and nips the flesh, and I moan a little louder with each bite.

I am feverishly pulling at the hem on his shirt and sliding my hands up and along his torso, then raking down his sides with my fingernails. He leans his head back, and I take the opportunity to rise up onto my toes and make work of his neck. He pulls back and almost trips over the carpet, pulling me with him back toward my bed. Our feet get tangled once or twice in our eagerness (coupled with our unwillingness to separate long enough to actually examine our surroundings before moving).

The back of his knees collide with my bed, and he turns quickly to move the laundry basket to the floor before sitting down and pulling me in for another kiss. I lean in and guide him to a lying position, my knees either side of his hips. As he leans back against the duvet, his hands grab the hem of my shirt and he pulls it up and over my head in one deft movement.

My flesh instantly prickles, both from the cool air in my apartment and in the wake of Solas’ gently trailing fingers. He sits up, and easily slips his hand around my waist and flips our positions – me on my back, Solas on top of me.

He kisses my newly revealed flesh, reveling in each half laugh, half moan that escapes me as his mouth closes over my collarbone. I hook my left leg around his right, nudging him with my toes to come back up to kiss me, but he grins and lays a few wet kisses to my sternum, trailing with his tongue down to my belly button, and finally settling at my hips.

“Ahh,” My breath catches and I feel my body hitch as his tongue plays in the hollow of my hip and his fingers pull at my belt loop, his thumb dipping in and out of the waistline. I suddenly feel so much warmer. Hot. Aching, even.

“Fuck.”

“Mmm?”

I can feel his smile in the kiss he leaves on my stomach.

“I mean –“

“Yes?”

He unbuttons my jeans with one hand, and the other slides under my thigh, settling with his thumb dangerously placed. There’s a warmth and a wetness Solas must have noticed by now. Damn him.

“Jesus.”

“Still no.”

“What?”

“The first time you came into my shop you said something similar.”

“Doesn’t look a thing like Jesus,” I breathe, writhing a little, somehow deciding that quoting the Killers makes for appropriate bedroom talk. It’s a little too crowded in my brain for good ideas to get through right now, but the gulped down glass and a half of wine certainly have something to add.

“Ah, but does he talk like a gentleman?”

“I hate you.”

“I hate the Killers.”

_He knows the Killers?!_

“Mmm, Kissing please.”

Solas smirks and rocks himself forward to kiss me on the mouth. When he stops, he looks down at me.

“Is this… alright?”

My brow furrows.

“I mean, is this okay?”

I smile, and set one hand on the side of his face.

“I promise you. More than okay.”

I turn and kiss his wrist, but he is already pulling away and settling back down by my hips, kissing them and pulling at my zipper and tugging at the ankles of my skinny jeans all the while. I catch the flash of his teeth before he’s back and kissing me (a jeans-less me), the flat of his palms against my sides, skimming along my skin and leaving trails of heat in their wake.

With fingers all thumbs, I manage to pull Solas’ shirt from his body, our mouths separated for a few breathless moments before we are caught back up again, our mouths and limbs tangled. There is a relief in the feel of his skin against my own, a shock at how smooth his skin his, how warm he feels pressed up against me.

His left hand at my side, a softly-calloused thumb sliding under the straps of my bra runs over my nipple and I shudder, feeling it go hard at his touch. He touches me, and I blossom underneath him. His touch is gentle and curious, but his mouth is hot. His mouth is hot over my own, his mouth is hot as he kisses my jaw, his mouth is hot when he pulls the cloth of my bra to the side and closes over the nipple, sucking and tonguing, grazing with his teeth.

_His mouth is perfect_ , I have decided.

He replaces his mouth with his fingers, and I moan in protest before I feel his mouth between my legs, his tongue pressing against me, only a thin layer of cloth keeping me from going completely insane.

“Oh, Jesus Christ –“

“Still no,” he mutters against my inner thigh, his breath hot, and I’m shaking.

“Felix – Solas – _whatever_ –“

He chuckles, and I can feel it so intently, the rumble of his laugh between my legs.

In one movement he pulls my underwear off, and his fingers trail every inch of my thighs on his way back to kissing the hollow between my thigh and hip.

“Solas – please –“

His mouth closes around my cunt, and my hips jerk involuntarily as his tongue slides over my clit.

“Oh – fuck.”

I feel Solas laugh again, and for a brief moment his laugh fills me before he returns with his tongue, and his breath, and his mouth, and _oh_. His tongue still making quick work of me, he easily slides a finger alongside my folds. He explores and his tongue wanders, but the pattern and the pulsing heat of him inside me remains steady. He is and I am slick with wetness, and with each thrust of his wrist, each flick from his tongue and I am so close to being undone, unlaced, my legs shaking uncontrollably when Solas’ reach is inside of me and around me and it takes every inch of my remaining willpower to not explode until finally – finally -- there is a crushing and a white hot release.

He pulls at my hips while I shudder against him, pulls me further into him until I’m a blubbering mess, a litany of swears and pleasantries, one right after the other.

“Ahh,” I laugh, one hand to my forehead. “Fuck.”

I glance down at Solas, who is grinning up at me, wiping his mouth with the heel of his hands. There is something so impossibly hot about that, something undeniably carnal.

“Fuck,” I say again.

“Are you stuck on the monosyllabic exclamations, or is that just for the moment?”

“Sorry.”

He laughs, and kisses the inside of my thigh, my hip, my belly. I run my fingers through his hair, and pull him up to meet me. When he kisses me, I can taste myself.

“Your tattoos,” he says. “They’re everywhere.”

“Oh, so that’s what you noticed?”

“Among other things.”

He settles with his nose underneath my ear, lying on his side next to me, his hand on my stomach. I look down at his fingers. Long and delicate, the same fingers that reach into earth and plant seeds, pull herbs and flowers from dirt.

The air is hot around us, and I can feel myself growing tired; the sleepy burn of wine in my belly spreading from my core to the tips of my toes. And there’s a light ringing in my ears, a kind of blissful white noise.

I shift my body to face Solas, and he kisses my forehead. I lean forward, finding purchase in the crook of his neck.

“Maybe you can let your roots grow here,” I murmur against Solas’ throat, and then, I am fairly sure, I fall asleep before he has time to answer.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [me, re: this fic](https://youtu.be/grbSQ6O6kbs?t=58)
> 
> missed you!!!!!!!!!! please accept the above as my humble offering to forgive a six week absence. it was like a mid-season hiatus. love you byeeee xoxo


	21. Chapter 21

Solas is a morning person. I can’t say that this comes as a surprise to me. He _would_ be a morning person, all bright eyes and up with the sun.

“I made you coffee.”

I hear him set a mug down onto the nightstand next to my head, and I blearily open one eye to assess the surroundings.

One: Yes, Solas is still here.

Two: His hair is disheveled and I like that.

Three: He’s already dressed and I do not like that.

“Mmm, no,” I mumble and reach for his waist, but come up all fabric, which is fine by me and works just as well to pull him towards the bed. “Come back.”

He laughs, and makes moves as if he is going to wrangle himself free, but I’m _obviously_ too enticing for him, and he steps forward until his knees are against the bed. Greedily, I scramble into a sitting position, kissing alongside his thigh and up toward his hip bone, where I linger for a few moments, conscious of how warm my breath is, how warm his skin feels, how quiet everything is, how I can hear his breath catch, hear him swallow.

“Ellana,” he whispers, tucking my hair back behind my ear and staying his hand curled gently against my jaw. “Don’t you have that tattoo today?”

I pull my chin from his grasp.

“Mmm, which tattoo?” I ask between kisses, hiking his shirt up higher to make room for them.

“The important one. The one for that girl,” he makes out. “The watercolor.”

“Shit!”

I start frantically patting the bed covers for my phone, and there’s a light thud and the feeling of plastic when I find it. The screen reads 9:30. I run my hand through my hair. ­

"Okay, okay. Not terrible. I still have ages. Geez, give me a heart attack why don't you?”

“Drink the coffee. I used your French press and everything – oh, and you need a better one – the plunger sticks.

I glare at him.

“You snore, by the way.”

“I do not.”

I glare from over the rim of the mug.

“Perhaps it’s just a post-orgasm side-effect.”

 _What?_ _!_

Coffee! Into lungs! Choking!

“Excuse me?” I rasp, hitting my chest to free my lungs of liquid.

“This will, of course, require further study,” he says coolly.

“And when do I get to do some studying of my own?”

I pull on his belt loop, trying to entice him fully back into bed.

“I have time,” I say, looking up at him.

“I do not,” he says, a little briskly, removing my finger from his jeans.

My shoulders sink a little. 

“Oh.”

“Perhaps – perhaps later,” he says.

“Right. Yes. Later.”

“I ah, I have to meet Harding at the shop. Good luck today. You’ll be fine.”

He picks his coat up from off the sofa, and then with a quiet click from the door he is gone.

I blink at the empty apartment.

“Okay, that went well.”

I climb out of bed, scowling all the while and all the way to the kitchen, coffee in hand. I open the freezer and pull out some whole wheat toaster waffles, because today I have decided to be bad. I’m ripping them free from their plastic bag when I notice the small brown lump in the back corner of the counter.

Solas’ wallet.

I sigh, and press the foot on the toaster. Down go the waffles.

I grab another waffle from the packaging and just bite into it, staring at the wallet, chewing angrily. When the toaster pops, I grab the wallet and toss it into my backpack.

And the day had started out so well, too.

-

I slide into Leliana’s car and turn the ignition to get warm. Before I pull out of the parking lot, I pull out my phone and open my messages to Leliana.

We don’t fight much, so this is weird.

                                                               hey }–

                                 are you still mad at me }–

\--{ no.

                               use of stark punctuation

                                     implies the contrary }–

\--{ im working, ella.

                             okay well im coming over }–

               im assuming you want yr car back }–

\--{ fine

-

“Leliana, I can’t have _two_ people mad at me, come on. Especially since I have my big tattoo today.”

She’s in the middle of whipping up a chai latte, and looks up from behind a curtain of red hair to make quick eye contact with me. I set her keys down on the counter, and they make a muffled clattering noise against the wood.

“Who else is mad at you?”

I sit down at the bar.

“Okay, yes, dwell on that, not on how I’m trying to grovel for forgiveness here. I was out of line. Can’t we hug and make up and then you pass me a coffee?”

She purses her lips, pours the drink she’s made into a paper cup, and sets it onto the counter. I pull out my phone and shoot off a quick text to Solas before I rethink it and don’t.

                             did i do something wrong }–

“Chai latte,” she calls to the room.

“I have a present for you,” I say, leaning forward to whisper. “If you’re in a nosy mood.”

She’s wiping down the steamer and looks at me expectantly. So I pull out Solas’ wallet from the pocket where I had been keeping it in my backpack.

“ _Voila_. Solas’ wallet.”

She almost immediately snatches it out of my hands.

“How did you get this?” She asks, holding it just out of my reach.

“He – he stayed over. Hey, come on, give it back or I’m taking back your car keys.”

She leans forward.

“He _stayed over_?”

She whispers staccato, each consonant knife-sharp.

“Ah! Yes. Not in the way you’re thinking – okay, kind of in the way you’re thinking, but not by a lot. It was kind of one-sided. Can I have that back for a second please?”

She narrows her eyes.

“In your favor or in his?”

I shift a little in my seat.

“Mine.”

“Oh. Well.”

She shrugs.

"Was it good?"

I widen my eyes and nod quickly.

“That’s fine then. Good for you two.”

She must still be a little miffed, or else she’d have hit me with a tea towel over fifty times by now for not telling her immediately.

Ignoring my grabby hands entirely she starts to open Solas’ wallet. Thankfully, she is interrupted by a customer before she can get too far and sets it back down on the counter. I immediately reach for it. She glares at me.

“ _Oui,_ yes?”

I open the billfold and pull out Felix’s driver’s license, then close the wallet again.

“Soy hot chocolate please.”

“ _D’accord_ , just a moment.”

I slide the wallet in Leliana’s direction while she pours soy milk into a tin cup.

“Can I get one of those? Maybe a shot of espresso, too?”

She sighs and laughs, and I feel victorious when she pours the remnants of the hot chocolate into a small paper cup and slides it over towards me.

I pull out my phone.

                              did i do something wrong }–

_Read, 10:15am_

Suddenly I feel less victorious.

“So,” she says, looking down at the wallet. "Can I take a peek?”

“Go hog wild.”

She doesn’t have to hear that twice. She’s already ripping out all the cards and pieces of paper.

“Ooh, he’s two stamps away from a free empanada at Julia’s Empanadas. Good man. Oh, his dry cleaning his ready, too. He'll need this.”

I take a second to pull out Felix’s driver’s license again, and stare down at it. The kid with the top knot stares back up at me.

“He does not seem to have any credit cards. That’s strange. Isn’t that strange?”

“Mmm, yeah, strange.”

I look at the dates to the side of Felix’s picture, and if I do the math right, he’s about 26 and some change in the photo. My age.

“Hey – ”

My math isn’t too good, but my memory is better.

“Leliana, can I see Solas’ driver’s license for a sec?”

“Mmm.”

She slides out the card and hands it out for me to take, not looking away from a small, folded index card of addresses.

I take the ID, and set it next to the one on the counter, comparing dates.

“Oh, come on,” I say under my breath.

Leliana looks up from the piece of paper, and I put Felix’s ID back into my pocket as quickly as possible.

“What?”

“Nothing. Solas thinks he’s 5’11”. No way he’s a millimeter over 5’10”, right? Anyway, I’d better go and prep for this tattoo I have. Wish me luck?”

I scoop up all of the Solas papers and cards and slide them back into his wallet.

“Don’t worry – I’ll fully debrief you later.”

I lean across the counter and plant a kiss on Leliana’s cheek.

“Remember that you love me!”

“You are so odd,” she says back to me, and I give her a full toothy grin before heading out the door.

“Thanks for the hot cocoa!”

I get to the door of the parlor, then stop to look across the street at the “Florist” sign.

I shake my head, then go to open the door. But not before I shoot off another text to Solas.

              so… which birthday do you celebrate? }–

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *looks at other fic writers who update 2+ times a week*  
> *breathers heavily* *sweats* *puts hands on knees* *waves them on*  
> no, no you guys, im good im gonna do a cooldown lap. get some water. no really keep going
> 
> xx
> 
> thanks for sticking with me(:


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